Chapter I: Part 1

Outside the Universe

By Edmond Hamilton

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Weird Tales July, August, September, October 1929.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

_1. The Swarm From Space_

The floor beneath me, slanting swiftly downward, flung me across the room and against its metal wall as our whole ship suddenly spun crazily in mid-space. For the moment following I had only a swift vision of walls and floor and ceiling gyrating insanely about me while I clutched in vain for some hold upon them, and at the same moment I glimpsed through the window the other ships of my little squadron plunging helplessly about behind us. Then as our craft's wild whirling slackened I stumbled to my feet, out of the room and up the narrow stair outside it, bursting into the transparent-walled little pilot room where my two strange lieutenants stood at the ship's controls.

"Korus Kan! Jhul Din!" I exclaimed. "Are you trying to wreck us all?"

The two turned toward me, saluting. Korus Kan, of Antares, was of the metal-bodied races of that star's countless worlds, his brain and heart and nervous system and vital organs encased in an upright body of gleaming metal whose powerful triple arms and triple legs were immune from all fatigue, and from whose ball-like upper brain-chamber or head his triangle of three keen eyes looked forth. Jhul Din, too, was as patently of Spica, of the crustacean peoples of that sun's planets, with his big, erect body armored in hard black shell, his two mighty upper arms and two lower legs short and thick and stiff, while from his shiny black conical head protruded his twin round eyes. Drawn as the members of our crews were, from every peopled star in the galaxy, there were yet no stranger or more dissimilar shapes among them than these two, who confronted me for a moment now in silence before Korus Kan made answer.

"Sorry, sir," he said; "it was another uncharted ether-current."

"Another!" I repeated, and they nodded.

"This squadron is supposed to have the easiest section of the whole Interstellar Patrol, out here along the galaxy's edge," said Jhul Din, "but we're no sooner clear of one cursed current than we're into another."

"Well, currents or no currents, we'll have to hold our course," I told them. "The Patrol has to be kept up, even out here." And as Korus Kan's hands on the controls brought our long, slender ship back into its proper path I stepped over beside him. Standing between the Antarian and the Spican and glancing back through our rear telescopic distance-windows I could make out in a moment the other ships of our squadron, falling again into formation far behind us. Then I had turned, and with my two friends was gazing forth into the great vista of light and darkness that lay before us.

It was toward our left that the light lay, for to the right and in front and behind us the eye met only blackness, the utter, unimaginable blackness of outer space. Left of us, though, there stretched along the ebon heavens a colossal belt of countless brilliant stars, the gathered suns of our galaxy. A stupendous, disk-like mass of stars, it floated there in the black void of space like a little island of light, and hundreds of billions of miles outward from the outermost suns of this island-universe our little squadron flashed through space, parallel to its edge. Looking toward the great galaxy from that distance, its countless thousands of glittering suns seemed merged almost in one mighty flaming mass; yet even among those thousands there burned out distinctly the clearer glory of the greater suns, the blue radiance of Vega, or the yellow splendor of Altair, or the white fire of great Canopus itself. Here and there among the fiery thousands, too, there glowed the strange, misty luminescence of the galaxy's mighty comets, while at the galaxy's edge directly to our left there flamed among the more loosely scattered stars the great Cancer cluster, a close-packed, ball-like mass of hundreds of shining suns, gathered together there like a great hive of swarming stars.

On our right, though, sharply contrasted with the galaxy's far-flung splendor, there stretched only blackness, the deep, utter blackness of that titanic void that lies outside our universe. Black, deep black, it stretched away in unthinkable reaches of eternal emptiness and night. Far away in that blackness the eye could in time make out, hardly to be seen, a few faint little patches of misty light, glowing feebly to our eyes across the mighty gloom of space; faint patches of light that were, I knew, galaxies of stars, island-universes like our own, separated from our own by a titanic void of millions of light-years of space, an immensity of emptiness into which even the swiftest of our ships could not venture, and beside which the distances between our own stars seemed tiny and insignificant.

In silence we gazed into that mighty panorama of thronging stars and cosmic void, standing there together as we three had stood for many an hour, Antarian and Spican and human. From the ship's hull, stretched beneath the little pilot room in which we stood, there came dimly to our ears the strangely differing voices of our crew. Over these occasional voices, too, there beat unceasingly the deep, droning hum of the great mechanisms whose tremendously powerful force-vibrations were propelling us on through space at almost a thousand light-speeds. Except for these familiar half-heard sounds, though, there was only silence in the pilot room, and in silence we three gazed as our ship and the ships behind it flashed on and on. Then, abruptly, Korus Kan uttered a sharp cry, pointing upward.

"Look!" he cried. "That swarm on the space-chart!"

* * * * *

Startled, our eyes lifted to where the Antarian pointed, toward the big space-chart on the wall above the window. A great rectangle of smooth, burnished metal, upon its flat surface were represented all in the heavens immediately about us. On the chart's left side there shone scores of little circles of glowing light, extending outward from the left edge for several inches, representing the outmost suns of the great galaxy to our left. Inches outward from the outermost of those glowing circles there moved upon the blank metal, creeping upward in a course parallel to the galaxy's edge, a formation of a dozen tiny black dots, the dots that were our squadron of ships, holding to our regular patrol far out from the galaxy's edge. And inches outward from our ship-dots, in turn, out in the blank metal at the chart's right, there moved inward toward us and toward the galaxy a great swarm of other black dots, a close-massed cluster of thousands of dots there on the chart that represented, we knew, a mighty swarm of matter moving in out of the void of outer space toward our ships and toward the galaxy to our left!

"A swarm of meteors!" I exclaimed. It could be nothing else, I knew, that was approaching our galaxy out of the unplumbed, awful void. "A swarm of meteors from outer space! And moving at unthinkable speed!"

"A swarm of meteors from outer space," repeated Korus Kan, thoughtfully. "It's unprecedented--and yet the space-chart doesn't lie."

I glanced again at the big chart. "The swarm's heading almost straight toward us," I said, watching the close-massed dots creeping across the big chart. "But it's traveling at thousands of light-speeds, and must be caught in an ether-current of inconceivable velocity."

"Its speed seems to be steadily slackening, though," said Jhul Din as we gazed up at the space-chart in silent awe.

I nodded. "Yes, but it ought to reach us within a few more hours. We'll halt our ships here until it reaches us, and as it passes we can ascertain its extent and report to General Patrol Headquarters at Canopus. They can send out meteor-sweeps then to destroy the swarm before it can enter the galaxy and menace interstellar navigation."

Even while I spoke Korus Kan had swiftly shifted the levers in his grasp, quickly reducing our craft's great speed, while the half-score of ships behind us slowed their own flight at the same moment in answer to his signal. The humming drone of our great propulsion-vibration generators waned to a thin whine and then died altogether as our ships came to a halt, while at the same moment the dozen ship-dots on the space-chart ceased to move also, hanging motionless on that chart as we were hanging motionless in space. Inches to the right of them, though, the close-massed dots of the mighty swarm were still creeping steadily across the chart, though now their unheard-of speed was fast slackening. In silent awe we regarded them. Out there in the awful void beside us, we knew, the great swarm was rushing ever closer toward us even as those thousands of close-massed dots crept toward our own ship-dots, and a strange tension held us as we watched them moving nearer.

To any of our comrades in the Interstellar Patrol it would have seemed strange enough, no doubt, the tense silence in which we watched the approach of the swarm, for surely a meteor-swarm more or less was nothing new to us. We had met with many a one in our patrols inside the galaxy, and many a time had aided in the work of the great star-cruising meteor-sweeps which keep free of them the space-lanes between the galaxy's suns. But this swarm, rushing toward us out of the mighty depths of outer space, was different. Never in all our history had any such mighty swarm of matter as this come toward our galaxy from the unplumbed outer void, and at such a speed as this one. For though it was moving slower and slower there on the space-chart, the great swarm was still flashing through space toward the galaxy at more than a thousand light-speeds, a velocity greater than that of any of our ships.

Silently we watched, there in the pilot room, while the swarm of close-massed dots crept across the big space-chart, toward the galaxy and toward the dozen dots that were our ships. Slower and slower still it was moving, its speed smoothly and steadily decreasing as it swept in toward the galaxy from outer space. Such a decrease in speed was strange enough, we knew, but knew too that if the swarm was being borne on toward us by a terrific ether-current its speed would slacken as the speed of the current slackened.

The minutes dragged past, forming into an hour, and another, and another, while we watched and waited there, and steadily still the swarm crept on toward us, moving on now at a steady velocity of five to six hundred light-speeds. Our ships hung silent and motionless still in space, with away to our left the flaming torches of the galaxy's thronging suns, and to our right the great vault of blackness out of which that mighty swarm of matter was rushing toward us.

Straight toward us almost it was heading on the space-chart, and now, as it crept over the last half-inch that separated it on the chart from our ships, I gave an order that sent our ships and those behind it slanting steeply upward. In swift, great spirals our squadron climbed, and within a moment more was hanging thousands of miles higher in space than before, our prows pointed now toward the galaxy. Tensely I watched the space-chart and then, just as the great swarm of black dots reached the dozen dots that were our ships, I uttered a single word, and instantly our squadron was racing toward the galaxy at a full five-hundred light-speeds, moving now at the same speed as the great swarm and hanging thousands of miles above it as it rushed on through space toward the galaxy. It was the familiar maneuver of the Interstellar Patrol in reconnoitering a meteor-swarm, to hang above it and race at the same speed with it through space, but never yet had we essayed it on such a swarm as this one, moving as it was at an incredible speed for inanimate matter, and without any signs about it of the ether-current which we had thought was the reason for that speed.

Now, as our ships hummed swiftly on, I stood with Jhul Din at the projecting distance-windows, gazing down into the mighty abyss of space that lay beneath us. Somewhere in that abyss, I knew, the great swarm was racing on at the same speed as ourselves, but as we gazed tensely down our eyes met nothing but an impenetrable darkness, the cold, empty blackness of the infinite void. I turned, signaled with my hand to Korus Kan at the controls, and then our ship began to drop smoothly to a lower level as it raced on, following a downward-slanting course now with the ships of our squadron behind close on our track. Down we slanted, still racing onward at the same terrific speed, while the Spican and I searched the darkness beneath with our eyes through the thick-lensed protecting windows, yet still was nothing visible in the tenebrous void below. Lower, still lower, our ships slanted, and then suddenly Jhul Din gave utterance to a short exclamation.

"Down there!" he cried, pointing down through the little window. "Those shining points--you see them?"

* * * * *

I gazed tensely down in the direction in which he pointed, and for a time could see nothing still but the infinite unlit blackness. Then suddenly my eyes too made out a few gleaming little points of light in the darkness far beneath us, points of light far separated from each other and driving on through space toward the galaxy far ahead, at the same speed as ourselves. And now, as our ships slanted still down over and toward them, they became more and more numerous to my eyes, a vast, far-flung swarm of fully five thousand gleaming points, spaced a thousand miles from one another, and racing on through space in a great triangular or wedge-shaped formation, the triangle's apex toward the galaxy ahead. The light with which each gleamed made the whole vast swarm seem like a throng of tiny ghosts of stars, driving through the void, though I knew that metallic meteors sometimes shone so with light reflected from the stars.

Never yet, though, had I seen a swarm gathered in such a precise formation as this one, or one that flashed onward at such vast and uniform speed. It was like a scene out of some strange dream, lying there in the black void beneath us, the mighty, silent swarm of light-points whirling on through space at that awful speed toward the massed, burning suns of the galaxy far ahead, out of the mysteries of outer space. Held still silent by the strangeness of it we gazed down upon it, as our ships slanted lower still. Then, as our squadron drove down at last to within a few hundred miles of the great swarm, the nature of those driving points of light became suddenly visible, and we gasped aloud.

For these were no meteors that drove through space in that mighty swarm beneath us! These were no fragments of cosmic wreckage out of the flotsam of smashed worlds and stars! These were mighty, symmetrical shapes of smooth metal, each an elongated oval in form and with rounded ends, each a great ship as large or larger than our own! The front end of each of these great oval ships glowed with white light, the light-points we had glimpsed from above, since the front end of each was transparent-walled like our own pilot room, and brilliantly lit inside. In those white-lit pilot rooms we could half glimpse, as we flashed along, masses of strange machinery and switches, and stranger beings that seemed to move about them, apparently directing the course and speed of their great ships as the whole mighty swarm of them rushed on through space, toward the galaxy's suns ahead!

"Space-ships!" My exclamation held all the stunned amazement that had gripped us all. "Space-ships in thousands from the outer void----"

Before I could complete the thought that was flashing across my mind there was a cry from Jhul Din, beside me, and I wheeled about to find him pointing downward, gazed swiftly down to see that a score or more of the great, strange ships beneath were suddenly slanting up toward us, as we raced along above them. With the swiftness of thought they flashed up toward us, and I had a lightning vision of the white-lit pilot rooms at the nose of each, rushing toward us like blurs of brilliant light. Then, as I shouted aloud, Korus Kan swung the controls in his grasp with lightning speed, and instantly our ship flashed sidewise in a twisting turn.

Even as we swerved, though, there leapt from the foremost of the uprushing craft a pale broad beam of ghostly white light that stabbed up toward and past us, grazing our ship, and that struck the foremost of the ships of our squadron behind us. I saw the broad beam strike that ship squarely, saw it playing on and through it, and for a moment could see no effect apparent. Then, as the great pale beam played across the ship in a swift slicing sweep, I saw that as it shone through that ship's pilot room the figures inside it suddenly vanished! The next moment the ship had suddenly driven crazily off into space, whirling blindly away without occupant or crew, all life in it wiped instantly from existence by that terrible death-beam that had played through it! Now the attacking ships were leaping up toward us, flashing up lightning-like with ghostly beams of death whirling and stabbing about and toward us, and now, over the wild clamor of sudden battle in the hull beneath, I heard the great cry of Jhul Din, beside me.

"_Space-ships in thousands, and they're attacking us! They've come from somewhere toward our galaxy--have come out of outer space itself to attack our universe!_"

_2. Chased Through the Void_

The moment of swift, terrific battle that followed was to me then only a wild uproar of flashing action and hoarse shouts, as the mighty ships beneath leapt up toward us. It was only another sudden twisting turn of our ship by Korus Kan that saved us from annihilation in that wild first moment of combat, since the score or more of pale, deadly beams from beneath, stabbing past us as we twisted, struck the ships of our squadron behind and in another moment had sent half of them reeling blindly and aimlessly out of sight, driving haphazardly off into space as the ghostly beams annihilated all the life inside them. Then, as we raced still through space above the mighty swarm, the score of attacking ships suddenly divided, a dozen of them driving up toward the ships behind us while the remainder flashed toward us, their great, pale rays still stabbing and slicing as they leapt on.

Even as our ship swerved from the pale beams leaping up toward us, though, I had shouted an order into the tube beside me, and now from our own craft there stabbed down toward the upward-rushing ships a half-dozen long, narrow rays of brilliant red light. Four of the ships below were struck squarely by those brilliant rays, and from our crew came shouts of triumph as those four vanished in blinding flares of crimson light. It was the deadly ray of the Interstellar Patrol, destroying all matter it touched by raising its frequency of vibration, since matter itself is but a certain frequency vibration of the ether, and when that frequency is raised to that of light-vibrations the matter is changed in that moment from solid matter to light.

Even in the moment that the four ships vanished beneath our rays, though, I had glanced backward and had seen the last of the ships of our squadron behind vanishing in a wild chaos of whirling death-beam and crimson ray, since scores of other ships were leaping up to attack us from the mighty swarm far beneath. Toward us now, it seemed, ships were flashing from every direction, and I heard the hissing of the ray-tubes below as our crimson rays burned out to meet them, saw three more of them flare and vanish, glimpsed a dozen shafts of the death-beam graze past us as Korus Kan twisted our ship in an erratic, corkscrew course. Not for moments longer, though, I knew, could we keep up this wild and unequal battle, since the mass of ships behind that had annihilated our squadron were now leaping after us. Our only chance was in flight.

I shouted to Korus Kan, and then, as scores of the ghostly beams swept through the void toward us, I saw him swerve the control-levers in his hands sharply sidewise, so that our ship abruptly turned squarely to the right, away from the great swarm and the attacking ships about us. It was a maneuver that caught those ships off their guard, and traveling as we were at the terrific velocity of five hundred light-speeds, it put millions of miles of space between us and the great swarm before the attacking ships could realize what we had done. In a split-second they had vanished from sight about us and we were again rushing on through black and empty space, turning now and again heading toward the galaxy's far-flung suns. But, as I gazed anxiously at the big space-chart, I saw that now the great swarm of black dots upon it had slanted from their former course and was heading straight after the single dot that was our ship. By means of their own space-charts, which I knew they must have, they had discovered our trick and were in pursuit!

"Let her out to full speed!" I cried to Korus Kan. "They're after us and our only chance is to get to the galaxy ahead of them!"

Instantly Korus Kan opened wide the power-controls, and with a mounting humming roar our great ship went rapidly into its highest speed, its great generators flinging it on through the ether at a thousand times the velocity of light, propelling it headlong onward toward the galaxy that lay still far ahead, its mighty disk-like mass of shining suns stretched across the blackness of space before us. And behind us rushed the great swarm, too, racing on after us and toward the galaxy still. I knew that the speed of that mighty swarm of ships must be inconceivably greater than that of our own, since we ourselves had seen them on our charts racing in toward the galaxy from outer space with velocity unthinkable, a velocity which we had thought could only be due to some great ether-current, and which they had only slackened as they drew near the galaxy. There was a slender chance, though, that we might yet escape, and now as we rushed on toward the galaxy in headlong flight I turned quickly to the speech-projection instrument beside me, pressing a button in its base. A moment later there came from it a clear, twanging voice.

"General Patrol Headquarters at Canopus," it announced, and swiftly I responded.

"Dur Nal, Captain of Patrol Squadron 598-77, speaking," I said. "I desire to report the discovery of a swarm of some five thousand strange space-ships which have appeared out of outer space, heading toward the galaxy. These ships are apparently capable of immense speeds and are armed with a form of death-beam unfamiliar to us, but extremely deadly in operation. On discovering these ships we were attacked by them and all of my squadron except my own ship destroyed. Our own ship is now being chased inward toward the galaxy, heading in the general direction of the Cancer cluster, and though the swarm is gradually overhauling us we may be able to escape. From the size, number and deadly armament of these alien ships it is apparent that they contemplate a general attack upon our universe."

There was a moment's pause when I had finished, and then from the speech-instrument there came the metallic voice again, as calm as though I had made only a routine report of position and progress.

"Order of Lacq Larus, Chief of the Interstellar Patrol, to Dur Nal. You will make every effort to elude the pursuing swarm, and if you can do so will endeavor to draw it into the Cancer cluster. All the cruisers of the Interstellar Patrol will be assembled inside the cluster as swiftly as possible, and if you are successful in drawing the pursuing swarm inside it will be possible for our fleet to fall upon it in an unexpected attack, and destroy these invaders, whatever their source or purpose, before they can obtain a foothold in the galaxy. You have the order?"

"I have the order," I replied, as calmly as possible, and with a word of acknowledgment the twanging voice ceased.

I wheeled around to Korus Kan and Jhul Din, a flame of excitement leaping within me. "It's a chance to destroy them all!" I exclaimed. "If we can hold out until we reach the galaxy--can lead them into that cluster----"

Their own eyes were afire now as they saw the chance, and now Korus Kan tightened his grasp on the controls, gazing grimly ahead with power open to the last notch, while Jhul Din strode swiftly out of the pilot room and down to the ship's hull beneath, where, in a moment more, I heard his deep voice booming out orders to the crew as they labored to wring from our throbbing generators the last ounce of speed. Yet now, too, looking up at the big space-chart, I saw that the gap on it between our single little ship-dot and the great swarm of dots behind was terrifyingly small, a gap of less than a half-inch which represented no more than a few billion miles of space. And slowly, steadily, that gap was closing, as the great swarm slowly overhauled us. With their immense potential speed they could have flashed past us in a moment, had they so desired, yet I knew too that they dared not use such terrific speed so near the galaxy, and that even did they use it we would be able to turn and double before they could slow down enough to catch us. Their plan, it was obvious, was simply to overhaul us slowly until they had just reached us, and then sweep down on us with the death-beams while we strove in vain to escape them.

So at our utmost speed we flashed on through the void toward the galaxy, a mighty belt of burning suns across the blackness before us, and toward the close-massed cluster of suns at its edge that shone among the scattered stars around it like a solid ball of light, while there rushed after us through space at the same mighty speed the great swarm of strange craft which we were attempting to lead into that cluster.

* * * * *

Surely in all time was never so strange a flight, a pursuit, as this one--a flight inward through the void with unimaginable beings from the mysteries of infinite outer space as our pursuers, flashing on in thousands on our track, toward us and toward the galaxy they meant to attack.

Far ahead in that galaxy, too, I knew, its forces would be preparing to meet that attack, and from the central sun of Canopus the alarm would be flashing out across our universe from star to star, from world to whirling world, flashing in warning from end to end of the galaxy, to all the stars and worlds and races of the Federated Suns. And even while that warning flashed, the great star-cruisers of the Interstellar Patrol would be gathering in answer, would be rushing headlong between the suns across the galaxy from every quarter of it to mass in force inside the Cancer cluster. Could we escape the pursuing swarm and lead it into that cluster it would still be hours, I knew, before we reached it, even at our tremendous speed, and in those hours all the fighting-ships of the galaxy would be racing toward the rendezvous there and massing to meet this mighty invading fleet.

Could we escape? The thought beat monotonously through my brain as I stood there with Korus Kan, silent as the Antarian as we watched the great swarm of dots creep closer and closer to us on the space-chart. On and on our ship was racing, the throbbing generators now making the whole ship vibrate with their vast power, and visibly the galaxy's shining suns were largening ahead as we flashed on toward them; yet as the minutes passed, forming into an hour, and then another, the great swarm behind crept ever remorselessly closer. Rocking and swaying as we plunged through great ether-currents, we held still straight toward the ball of swarming suns that was the Cancer cluster, at the galaxy's edge ahead; yet still we had covered no more than two-thirds of the distance that had separated us from it, and now the great swarm was no more than a few million miles behind, a mere fraction of an inch on the space-chart.

It was as though our pursuers were but playing with us, so calmly and steadily did they overtake us, and in despair I turned from the galaxy's mighty rampart of stars, ahead, to the rear distance-windows. A moment more, I knew, and the thousands of ships behind would be drawing into sight in those windows, would be speeding down upon us even as we sought to flee and would annihilate us with an attack which we could not hope to escape a second time. Hopelessly I gazed back into the blackness of space behind, but then wheeled back suddenly as there came a sudden exclamation from Korus Kan. He had swerved our flying ship's course a little and was pointing up toward the space-chart now, his strange eyes agleam with excitement.

"If we can make it, it's a chance to throw them off our track," he exclaimed, and as I gazed up toward the space-chart I suddenly understood.

On that chart our single ship-dot was rushing on toward the glowing circles of the galaxy's suns, with the mighty swarm of black dots that were our pursuers close behind, and now I saw that a little ahead of our own ship-dot there hung stationary on the chart another dot, one not of black but of red. Instantly I recognized it as one of the great space-buoys hung in space to mark the positions of the mighty ether-maelstroms which were the most perilous of all the menaces to interstellar navigation. Formed by the meeting of vast ether-currents, these maelstroms had been marked for all space-navigators by placing near each a special space-ship, or buoy, which automatically and without crew kept its position, showing as a red dot on all space-charts to warn passing ships of the maelstrom's position. The great maelstrom ahead, I knew, was one of the mightiest of all in and around our galaxy, and now as our ship sped straight through space toward it I saw Korus Kan's plan and caught my breath with sudden hope.

"We'll head straight toward the maelstrom, and then swerve aside just before we reach it," he was saying. "The swarm behind can have no knowledge of its existence, and if they run into it before they can change their course it'll delay them, at least."

Tensely I watched now as our ship raced on, the humming roar of its generators rising a half-pitch still higher as Jhul Din, beneath, drove the crew to their last strength to win another light-speed. A scant few million miles ahead the great maelstrom lay, marked only by the red dot on the chart, and as we sped straight on toward that dot our ship already was rocking and bucking as we drove through the mighty ether-currents whose meeting formed the maelstrom. Braced against the room's wall we stood, eyes straining ahead through the darkness and against the glare of the galaxy's suns in the distance, and then, as I turned to glance back, I saw that behind us now there gleamed in the blackness points of shining light, points that were swiftly largening and nearing us, countless in number and driving through space straight on our track. With each fleeting moment they were flashing nearer toward us, and now were so near that through the distance-window I could plainly make out their white-lit pilot rooms as they drove after us. A moment more, I knew, would see them close enough to loose the death-beams upon us, but at that moment there was a half-breathed exclamation from Korus Kan, and I turned swiftly about.

He was gripping the controls tensely, gazing forward into the blackness that lay between us and the galaxy, and even as I turned I saw that our ship-dot had flashed past the red danger-dot on the space-chart. Instantly then Korus Kan twisted the controls sharply to the left, and immediately our craft was flashing off in a great curve from the path it had been following, veering suddenly toward the left while the great swarm just behind us raced still for the moment straight ahead. Then, before they could swerve aside to follow us, I had a single flashing glimpse through the window of the whole mighty swarm suddenly disintegrating, shattering, the thousands of ships that made it up suddenly whirling away in all directions in blind chaos of aimless movement as they rushed straight into the mighty ether-maelstrom into which we had led them. Then they had vanished, whirling blindly about, as we flashed on out of sight, our own craft swaying wildly as we drove on through the great currents about the maelstrom. On the space-chart, though, I saw the great swarm's pursuit for the moment had ceased, the myriad dots that made it up milling aimlessly about in the mighty maelstrom's grip while our single ship-dot raced straight on.

"A chance!" I cried, as our ship flashed on toward the galaxy's suns. "A chance yet--if we can get to the Cancer cluster before them!"

* * * * *

Now our cruiser was again flashing on at its very highest speed, straight toward that cluster, while behind us the great swarm whirled chaotically about. Before us the galaxy's suns were burning out in waxing splendor as we shot through space toward them, the cluster of closer-packed suns that was our goal changing now from a ball of solid light into a ball-like mass of thronging, flaming stars as we drew nearer it. But as Jhul Din came back into the pilot room from beneath, as we three contemplated the space-chart and then the great wall of suns in the blackness ahead, our faces set again after our brief triumph, for we knew that billions of miles of space lay still between us and those suns. And now, too, we saw on the chart that the great swarm of ships behind had escaped from the maelstrom's grip at last and was racing after us once more in swift pursuit, a hundred of their ships in the van now of that pursuit with the main body of the swarm behind.

"It's the last stretch!" I exclaimed, as we gazed tensely at the chart and into the void ahead. "Unless we get to the Cancer cluster ahead of them now it's the end."

Our ship was leaping forward still at its uttermost speed, its strained generators functioning nobly, but the great swarm behind was again picking up speed itself, the hundred ships massed together a few million miles ahead of the main swarm hardly more than an inch behind our own ship-dot on the space-chart. On--on--straight toward the fiery mass of the Cancer cluster we fled, while behind us, in cruel repetition of the first part of this wild chase the pursuing ships slowly cut down the gap between us, the hundred foremost ones leaping every moment closer toward us, while behind them the main swarm came on more deliberately. Ahead now the galaxy filled the heavens before us, myriads of burning stars that gemmed the infinite night with their flaming brilliance, but of all in the stupendous scene around and before us we had eyes only for the thronging suns of the Cancer cluster, and for the space-chart above us.

On--on--the minutes of that mad onward flight were passing each like an eternity as we leapt forward, tensely braced there in the pilot room, peering forward, with behind us the hundred pursuing ships close on our track, remorselessly overtaking us, with behind them the great swarm of thousands of ships that were driving to attack our universe. Ahead of us, I knew, there somewhere in the flaming cluster of suns before us, the cruisers of the great Interstellar Patrol, the war-ships of our universe, would be gathering and massing to meet that great invading fleet, but unless we could escape and lead it into the cluster where they waited they would have no chance for a surprize attack. Before us by now the great cluster lay in waxing, flaming splendor, only a scant few billion miles ahead, its thronging, gathered suns burning out in supreme glory amid the galaxy's looser-swarming suns, but now the hundred foremost ships of the mighty swarm behind were almost upon us.

Even as I turned, now, toward the distance-window behind me, I heard a deep exclamation from Jhul Din, who had turned to gaze back also, and as I too gazed through that window a chill seemed to creep through my very blood, for light-points were showing there in the blackness behind, and drawing swiftly nearer. It was the hundred foremost ships! Ever closer they were racing toward us, overtaking us again with every moment, while far behind them the main swarm raced on after them. With each passing moment the light-points behind were broadening, brightening, as the ships came closer, but now the great cluster ahead loomed full before us, its myriads of flaming, thundering suns drenching all in our pilot room in their fierce, terrific glare. Straight ahead of us, at the mighty cluster's outmost edge, flamed a great double star among all the other thronging stars that made it up, two giant white suns separated only by a comparatively narrow gap. And straight toward that narrow gap our fleeing ship was heading!

Behind us now the hundred long oval ships were drawing into plain sight, their white-lit pilot rooms giving us brief glimpses inside of massed machinery and slender beings we could but half-glimpse that moved inside. From the foremost of those ships, now, there stabbed out toward us the broad, pale, ghostly beam of death, but as yet the gap between us was too wide for the beam to bridge, and we flashed onward still, the gleaming shapes of our pursuers leaping still closer. Before us now the whole firmament seemed a wild chaos of gigantic suns, as we raced straight in toward the mighty cluster, with ahead the narrow gap that separated the two giant white suns toward which we were heading.

Jhul Din gripped my shoulder, pointed ahead, shouted to me over the roar of our generators. "Unless we slacken speed we'll never make it through that gap without driving into one of the suns," he cried.

I shook my head. "It's death either way!" I yelled to him. "Our only chance is to drive between them at full speed!"

Now before us the whole heavens seemed a single vast sheet of boiling white flame as we drove in toward the two mighty thundering suns, the gap between them seeming no more than a narrow black cleft at the terrific velocity at which we were moving. At our topmost speed we rushed toward that narrow gap, the ships behind still leaping full upon our track, closing swiftly down upon us now. And now, as Korus Kan braced himself and held our controls still steady, we were flashing squarely in between the two gigantic suns. On either side of us they towered, thundering, boiling upright oceans of devouring, brilliant white flame, whose awful glare all but blinded us, seeming to fill all the universe about us with one great mass of raging fires. Out toward our onward-flashing ship there licked from the great suns on either side titanic tongues of flame bursting out toward us for millions of miles, huge prominences that could have licked up worlds like midges, but straight on between the walling fires our throbbing ship still flashed.

Now the hundred ships behind, still after us through that hell of light and flame, were racing down upon us even as we sped between the giant flaming suns, and now from behind shot shaft upon shaft of the pale death-beams, hardly to be seen in the awful blinding glare. As the beams sprang toward us, though, Korus Kan swerved to the left, and for a moment it seemed that we had swerved from death in one form only to meet it in another, since at our terrific speed we veered millions of miles in that moment toward the left gigantic sun. Its boiling fires were all about us, seemed to encompass us, and then just as it seemed that we were racing into the mighty glowing corona to our deaths Korus Kan had swerved our ship backward into the center of the narrow gap. And now we were reaching that gap's end, were passing from between the giant suns, and out into more open space inside the great cluster, with the pursuing ships again leaping forward to loose their deadly beams.

Out from between the two great suns we flashed, before us now the interior of the mighty cluster, a great swarm of flaming suns that thronged space all about us, and about many of which swung great families of planets, dozens of whirling worlds. Even as we shot into the interior of the great cluster, though, from between the two giant suns, the hundred pursuing craft had leaped forward upon us with one great burst of sudden speed, were behind us, on each side, all about us. It was the end, we knew, and there was an instant of sheer silence as we waited for that end, waited for the pale beams of death from the ships about us. But before they could loose those beams there flashed suddenly upon them from each side other ships, two mighty masses of ships like our own, that burst suddenly out upon our pursuers from behind the two great suns between which we had just come. Ships like our own! Ships long and slender and gleaming! Ships of the Interstellar Patrol, striking at the vanguard of the invaders in defense of our universe!

_3. Death-Beam and Crimson Ray_

Even as the great masses of ships on each side leapt out upon our pursuers, Korus Kan had glimpsed them, and had swung our own ship instantly around in a great curve. On each side of us, now, were the thousands of cruisers of the great patrol, and before us were the hundred ships that had chased us in toward the galaxy through space. Before those ships could recover from their surprize, before their occupants could realize the trap into which they had ventured, our whole vast fleet was leaping upon them from both sides, flashing down upon the hundred invading craft before they could turn from their onward flight.

Down with them swooped our own ship now, and we shouted aloud as we saw from all the swooping ships about us, as from our own, myriad brilliant shafts of the brilliant red ray flashing down and striking the enemy ships ahead and below. Within an instant, it seemed, half those racing ships had flared and vanished in brilliant bursts of crimson light, while the rest had dipped and turned in a wild effort to escape. Back toward the two great white suns they raced, seeking to escape between them into outer space again, to rejoin the oncoming main swarm of their great fleet, but down before and ahead of them leapt our Patrol cruisers, the red rays again whirling and cutting in great circles of death. And now as they vanished one by one beneath those rays, struggling still through space toward the two great suns, the death beams of the remaining ships sprang savagely up toward us, and I saw cruisers here and there in our own fleet driving aimlessly off, smashing into one another and whirling blindly away as the beams wiped out all life in them.

But now we were leaping after the fleeing ships between the great suns again, and as we shot after them through those terrific walls of flame our rays again took toll of them; so that as we flashed out from between the two mighty suns and into outer space once more but a scant half-dozen of them remained, and these leapt instantly forward and out into the blackness of outer space to rejoin the main body of their approaching fleet, while we in turn sprang after them in hot pursuit, though our ships were not capable of the tremendous speeds of those invading ones.

"Score for us!" cried Jhul Din as our ships flashed on. "We've all but wiped out those hundred!"

"Wait!" I told him. "The main body of their fleet's coming on toward us----"

Even as I spoke I saw the ship of Lacq Larus, Chief of the Patrol, the flag-ship of our fleet, slackening its speed ahead of us, and a moment later there came from the speech-instrument beside me his clear, unruffled voice.

"All ships halt and mass in battle formation!" he ordered; and at once, in answer to that command, our flashing ships slowed and stopped, forming instantly into three thick, short columns and hanging motionless in space.

On the space-chart above, now, we could see the mass of thousands of dots that was our fleet hanging motionless a little out from the galaxy's edge, and could see, too, a little outward from that mass of dots, another and equally large mass, that moved slowly in toward us, the great swarm that was the invading fleet. Already the few fleeing survivors of our hundred pursuers had raced back into that main swarm, and now, moving ever more slowly but coming steadily forward, it was driving through space toward us. The great swarm was moving still in a triangular formation, the triangle's apex toward us, and now at last, as we stared forward into the blackness, we made out light-points ahead, a vast swarm of them in that steady triangular formation, moving deliberately toward us.

Slowly now those light-points were largening, were changing into great, gleaming ships as their fleet came on toward us. Ever more slowly it moved, now at but a fraction of a light-speed, for it was evident that they, like us, sought no fight-and-run skirmish but a battle to the finish. At last they had stopped, had halted just out of ray-reach ahead and were hanging motionless in space like ourselves, facing us. And then, for a moment, it seemed as though about us was an unbroken stillness and silence, as the two mighty fleets, numbering each fully five thousand ships, faced each other there in space.

I think that never in all space and time could there have been a moment as strange as that one, when the mighty fleet of our galaxy lay prow to prow with this other mighty fleet from the dark, unguessed mysteries of outer space. All about us lay the cold, lightless blackness of the eternal void, with the great galaxy's colossal rampart of flaming suns stretched across the heavens behind us alone blazing in that blackness, the great Cancer cluster at its edge, just behind us, flaming with all the glory of its mass of gathered suns. A single instant that silence and stillness reigned in the stupendous scene about us, an instant that to our strained nerves seemed endless, and then a sharp order rang from the speech-instrument beside me, and as one our great fleet leapt forward while the opposing fleet sprang to meet us. The battle was on.

I saw the enemy fleet flashing straight toward us, the apex of its triangle pointed full at our center, and knew instinctively that it meant to cut us into halves with the great wedge that was itself. But as it flashed straight toward us and upon us there rang another order from the instrument at my side, and instantly our three short columns of ships veered to the right, changing in a moment into one long column, which instead of meeting the onrushing triangle flashed along its side. As we shot past thus I had a lightning glimpse of the masses of countless oval ships racing by, glimpsed too a score or more of ships at the center of their fleet that seemed not oval but round and disk-like in shape, and then forgot all else as from all our ships there burst the brilliant red rays, raking the side of their fleet with a deadly fire as we flashed past it. Then scores upon scores of their ships were vanishing in crimson flares of light as those rays found them, and though their death-beams found our own ships here and there as we flashed by, the great mass of their ships dared not loose their beams upon us lest they destroy their own ships, so skilful had been our maneuver.

Only a moment did it last, that passing of the two fleets with red ray and death-beam crossing, and then we were past them, were turning and circling and racing back upon them to deliver another blow. Ahead we could see the enemy fleet turning and racing back to meet us, with beyond them the great suns of the galaxy flaming in the blackness of space, and again we leapt straight toward them there in the abysmal void; but this time they had anticipated our maneuver and as we swerved to the right of them their whole great fleet swerved right also, so that in order to avoid a head-on collision with their fleet we were forced to swerve still farther to the right, our long column racing along through space now parallel to the galaxy's edge, with the enemy ships strung in a similar column between us and the galaxy, racing along with us through space at the same speed as ourselves, their pale ghostly beams whirling toward us even as our crimson shafts cut through the void toward them.

Ships on each side were vanishing, now, some flaring in wild explosions of red light and disappearing as the scarlet rays found them, others driving crazily and aimlessly away as the pale beams wiped out in an instant all the crews inside them. But now we found ourselves at a disadvantage, for our enemy's gleaming ships could hardly be made out against the flaring suns of the galaxy, beyond them, while our own glittering cruisers stood out clearly against the darkness of outer space. It was an advantage of which they took swift use, for now the broad pale beams were reaching toward us in increasing numbers as we flashed along, while our own rays were all but ineffective, since, blinded as we were by the flaring suns behind the opposing ships, we could only loose the rays at random.

On still we raced, along the galaxy's edge, the great Cancer cluster dropping behind us now as we sped on, our two great fleets striking and grappling with each other even as they flashed on. Black space and flaming suns, pale ray and red, oval ships and long cruisers, all mingled and whirled in that wild scene like the features of some tortured dream, but dream it was none to us, flashing on with our fleet while in the hull beneath our crew loosed their red rays of death upon the chance-seen enemy ships that flashed between us and the dazzling suns. At an order flashed from the Chief's flag-ship our whole fleet increased to its utmost velocity, striving to pass the enemy fleet and get between it and the galaxy again, but the immeasurable speed of these great invaders from outer space defeated our efforts. At the same speed as ourselves they raced forward, keeping always between us and the suns, and when we slowed our speed suddenly to fall behind them they instantly did likewise.

Meanwhile ships all about us were driving aimlessly away, reeling blindly off into space or smashing into each other, as the pale death-beams found more and more of them in that mad running fight. Not for many minutes longer, I knew, could the unequal contest be kept up. Already we were past the Cancer cluster, still racing along the galaxy's edge, and then abruptly there came another sharp order from the instrument beside me. Instantly, in obedience to that order, all our racing, battling ships slowed, swiftly grouped themselves into a triangular formation, its apex in turn pointing toward the long line of the enemy's fleet, between us and the galaxy. Then, before they could mass their own fleet again, our triangle of mighty cruisers had leapt straight toward the galaxy, its apex tearing full into the long line of their ships.