Chapter II: Part 2

* * * * *

There was a moment of reeling, crashing shock, as our massed fleet crashed into that line, and all about me in that moment, it seemed, patrol-cruisers and oval ships were smashing into each other, colliding and bursting wildly there in mid-space. Then suddenly we were through, the mass of our fleet ripping through their line by main force; but now, as we smashed on through, another order sounded and we curved swiftly about, and still in that close-massed formation rushed back upon the shattered enemy line of ships. Before they could reform that broken line, before they could mass again in their own close formation, we were upon them, and then again our wedge-shaped mass was driving through them, shattering their disorganized masses still further and sending scores of them into annihilation now with our red rays as we flashed through.

"We've won!" shouted Jhul Din, at the window, as our massed fleet again wheeled and sped back upon the disorganized mass of ships before us. "We've won! We've broken up their fleet!"

Now, though, we were rushing back to strike another deadly blow, and before us, I saw, the thousands of the invading ships were still milling aimlessly there in space, their organization shattered by the smashing blows we had dealt them. With red rays flashing we sped upon them again, but now, from the disorganized mass before us, I saw a score or more of ships rising, flashing upward with immense speed, ships that were not oval like the rest but flat and round and disk-like, ships that I had vaguely glimpsed in our first rush on the enemy fleet and which through all the battle they had kept protected from us at their fleet's center. Now, with all their terrific speed, the disk-ships were flashing upward, and even in the instant that we rushed again upon our enemies they had attained to a great height above us.

In that instant I gave them but a glance, since again we were darting upon the mass of oval ships, our own cruiser now toward the rear of our fleet's formation. But in the next moment, even as we flashed on in our swift charge, I saw the score of disk-ships hanging high above suddenly glow and flicker with strange force, the whole great lower side of their big disks alive with a flickering, rippling, viridescent light. And at the same moment I saw the ships of our fleet ahead of us suddenly breaking from their mad charge forward and lifting slowly upward, saw them twisting and turning and reeling but still moving steadily up, toward those score of disk-ships high above, as though pulled upward by a mighty, unseen grip.

"Attraction-ships!" I shouted, as I saw what was happening. "Those disk-ships above--they're pulling our cruisers up with some magnetic or electrical attractive force, that affects the metals of our ships but not of theirs!"

We were still racing forward, at the rear of our fleet, but as I saw that all the thousands of our cruisers before us, almost, were in the grip of the attractive forces from above, were being pulled helplessly upward, I shouted to Korus Kan, and he shifted the controls swiftly sidewise, sending our cruiser veering away before it came beneath the disk-ships high above and was pulled up likewise. We had escaped for the moment, but now from ahead all the disorganized masses of the oval invading ships had gathered together again and were leaping forward, springing upon our own helpless masses of cruisers as they were pulled resistlessly upward. From all about those masses of twisting, turning cruisers the pale death-beams smote toward them, and only here and there could a few shafts of the red ray answer them, caught as our ships were in that tremendous grip.

Swiftly the cruisers of our fleet were being wiped clean of all the crews inside, as the death-beams swung and circled through them from all about. But a few score of cruisers at the rear of our fleet, like ourselves, had managed to escape the relentless grip of the disk-ships above, and now upon ourselves other masses of the oval ships were rushing. Wildly we battled there, the hordes of the invading ships spinning and flashing about us, but swiftly our few score of cruisers were sent reeling blindly off by the death-beams; and now, looking back an instant, I saw that the last of our mighty fleet of thousands of cruisers were being annihilated by the death-beams of the oval ships that swarmed about them, as they were drawn helplessly upward. We and a few other cruisers, struggling wildly there against the encircling masses of the oval ships, were all that remained of the galaxy's once mighty fleet!

Even as we fought there, with the mad energy of despair, I saw the last of our companion cruisers whirling away as the death-beams found it, and realized that except for a few stragglers here and there like our own ship the great fleet was annihilated, and that our only chance was in flight. With every moment the oval ships about us were increasing in number, completely encircling us, now, and it was only by a miracle of veering, twisting turns by Korus Kan that our ship was able to avoid the death-beams that reached toward us from all sides. Escape seemed impossible, so completely were we hemmed in by the circling, striking ships, and another moment would see our end, I knew; and so I wheeled, shouted hoarsely to Korus Kan.

"We'll have to break through them!" I shouted. "Give her full speed, Korus Kan, and head straight in toward the galaxy!"

Instantly he jerked open the power-control to the last notch, and as our ship leapt forward like a living thing toward the masses of ships that surrounded us he sent it driving straight toward the galaxy, and toward a spot where there showed a momentary gap between the ships that hemmed us in. But a single instant it took us to reach that gap, pale beams whirling all about us while our own red rays flashed sullenly forth, but in the instant that we reached it one of the oval ships had seen our intention and had leapt forward to close the gap. An instant too late it was to close it completely, but the oval ship's nose, containing its transparent-walled pilot room, lay across our path as we reached the gap, and straight into it we crashed!

* * * * *

There was a terrific, rending shock as our great prow tore into the transparent-walled nose of the enemy ship, and beneath that shock we saw the whole fore portion of the oval ship crumpling up and collapsing, reeling away a shattered wreck of metal. Our own cruiser rocked and swayed crazily at the collision, and for a moment it seemed that we too were doomed, but the next our battered ship leapt forward, and in an instant was free of the masses of oval ships that had encircled us, and was driving now in toward the galaxy's suns, with a score of the oval ships behind in hot pursuit.

In we drove, speeding now past the great Cancer cluster as we flashed at our utmost speed into the galaxy, its great ball of gathered suns flaring in the black heavens to our left as we sped inward. Behind came our pursuers, racing on close after us; and now, glancing back beyond them, I saw the whole mighty fleet of the invaders, still fully three thousand ships in number, moving in toward the galaxy also, toward the great Cancer cluster, with its swarming suns and thronging worlds, saw the great fleet slowing, slanting down toward those suns, those worlds, and knew then that these invaders, having annihilated the galaxy's fleet, were settling upon the suns and worlds of the Cancer cluster as a first foothold in our universe, a base from which they could subdue all that universe. Then their fleet had vanished from our distance-windows as we fled on, and of the score of our pursuers all but three had turned back to rejoin that fleet.

The three remaining ships, though, drove straight on our track, and swiftly were overhauling us, though inside the galaxy they dared not use all their tremendous speed. Yet remorselessly after us they came, and I knew that moments more would see our end unless we could escape them. Directly ahead of us, though, there flamed a small crimson sun, a dying, planetless star not far inward from the Cancer cluster, largening each moment before us as we drove on toward it with terrific speed. As I saw it a last plan flashed through my brain, and I turned to Korus Kan.

"Head straight toward that sun!" I told him. "It's our only chance--to get in close and lose them in its corona!"

He nodded grimly, swerving the ship a little, and now straight toward the red star we raced, Jhul Din and I gazing out with him toward it as we flashed on, and then behind to where the gleaming three ships of the invaders drove after us. Swiftly they were overtaking us, two close behind us and the remaining one a little behind the two, but ahead the crimson star was filling almost all the heavens, now, a great sea of fiery red flame that stretched above and beneath us, ahead, as though occupying all the firmament. Its glare was awful, now, for we were racing straight in toward the mighty corona of it, the glowing outer atmosphere of radiant heat about it in which, I knew, no ship, however heat-resistant, could live for more than a moment. On we raced, our cruiser creaking and swaying still from the effects of the collision with the ship we had smashed into, but flashing on with unabated speed.

Behind us, the three gleaming shapes of our pursuers were following with unslackened speed, too, gradually drawing nearer, the two foremost of those ships just behind us, now. Another moment and their death-beams would stab toward us, and though we might destroy one or even two of them the other would surely destroy us before we could turn to it, I knew. The heat, too, of the great star before us was penetrating into our ship, and full before us, not a dozen million miles ahead, glowed the great corona. On we flashed--on--on--and then, just as we were about to burst into the terrible, glowing corona, just as the two ships close behind us sprang closer to stab with their beams toward us, Korus Kan jerked the controls suddenly back, and instantly our ship shot upward in a great vertical rush, while beneath, before they could see and follow our change of course, the two racing oval ships pursuing us had flashed on and into the mighty glare of the corona. Then we glimpsed them shriveling, twisting, vanishing, in the awful heat there, while our own cruiser turned now away from the red sun.

Beneath we saw the single remaining oval ship turning, too, since it had been far enough behind the two to change its course in time to avoid the terrible corona. It seemed to pause, hesitate, and then, as though satisfied that our ship too had met death in the corona with its own two companions, it began to flash backward toward the galaxy's edge, toward the Cancer cluster where the mighty invading fleet had settled. And now, burning for revenge, our own cruiser was slanting back with it and down toward it, as it drove on unsuspectingly beneath. Another moment and we would be above it, would loose our red rays on it before ever it suspected our existence. I was breathing with relief at our escape, now, and heard an exulting cry from Jhul Din as he strode down into the cruiser's hull from the pilot room, to direct the ray-tubes there, but the next moment all our triumph vanished, for from our cruiser's hull, toward its battered prow, there came suddenly a succession of appalling cracks.

Standing suddenly tense we listened, and then, as there came from beneath a prolonged, cracking roar, I heard shouts of fear from our crew, and then Jhul Din had burst up into the pilot room from beneath.

"The cruiser's walls are giving!" he cried. "That collision with the oval ship when we smashed our way out strained and wrenched loose the whole prow and side-walls--the cruiser can't hold together for five minutes more!"

There was a stunned silence in the little room then, a silence in which it seemed that all the disasters that had befallen us were crowding together upon us, overpowering us. This was the end, I knew. Within minutes more the walls about us would collapse and in the infinite cold and emptiness of interstellar space we would meet our deaths. We were hours away from the nearest friendly planet, with all our companion ships destroyed. It was the end, and for a moment I bowed to the inevitable, stood in stunned despair awaiting that end. But then, as my eyes fell upon the oval ship beneath, toward which our collapsing cruiser was still slanting downward, I saw that upon its broad metal back was the round circle of a space-door, like the double space-doors of our own ship, and as I saw that, all the ancient combativeness that has carried men out into the remotest of the galaxy's depths surged up in me, and I wheeled around to the other two.

"Order all our crew down to the cruiser's lower space-door," I cried, "and have an emergency space-suit issued to each of them!"

They stared at me, strangely, tensely. "What are you going to do?" asked Jhul Din, at last, and my answer came out in a shout.

"We're going to do what never yet has been done in all the battles between the stars!" I told him. "_We're going to put our lives on one last mad chance and board that enemy ship in mid-space!_"

_4. A Struggle Between the Stars_

A moment there was silence in the pilot room, a silence of sheer surprize, in which my two lieutenants gazed at me in utter amazement, and then from Jhul Din came a great shout.

"It's a chance!" he cried. "If we can do it we'll escape yet!"

"Down to the space-door at once, then!" I told him. "The ship can't last for seconds now!"

For even then there had come to our ears another long, cracking roar as our battered walls gave still farther. Now Jhul Din was racing down from the pilot room to assemble the crew, and now our cruiser was slanting still farther down toward the long, gleaming oval ship beneath. Down we slanted, until our own swaying cruiser hung at a distance of a score of feet above the enemy ship, which, believing us destroyed, never dreamed of our presence as we raced on through space at the same speed as itself. And now Korus Kan hastily set the automatic controls in the pilot room that would hold our cruiser at the same speed and course without guiding hand, and then we too hurled ourselves down the narrow stair, through the big power room where the great generators were still throbbing on, down through the succession of compartments in the cruiser's hull until we had reached the long, low room that lay at its very bottom, and in the floor of which was set the cruiser's lower space-door.

In the long room all our crew was gathered now, with Jhul Din at their head, a hundred odd in number, and a strange enough aggregation they were, drawn as they were from the far-different races of the galaxy's peopled stars. Octopus-beings from Vega, great plant-men from Capella, spider-shapes from Mizar--these and a score or more of differing forms and shapes stood before me, listening in disciplined silence as I briefly explained our plan. About us the walls were wrenching and cracking fearfully, but when I had finished those before me raised a fierce shout, and then each of us was hastily climbing into the emergency space-suits which were kept always in all interstellar ships in case outside repairs to it were necessary in mid-space.

A moment more and we all stood attired in the hermetically sealed, clumsy-looking suits of thick, flexible metal, with head-pieces of metal in which were transparent vision-plates. As we donned them each pressed the button which set the little air-generators inside each suit pouring forth their supply of fresh air and purifying the breathed air; and then, with a swift glance around that showed each in his suit, I motioned to Jhul Din and at once the big Spican pressed the stud in the wall that sent the round space-door in the floor sliding open.

We could not feel through our insulating suits the tremendous cold that instantly invaded the ship, but we heard plainly the swift, terrific swish of air about us as it rushed out of the ship into the mighty void outside. Now, looking down through the open door, we could see a score of feet beneath the broad metal back of the great oval ship, still racing on unsuspectingly beneath us. I turned back to the crew about me, saw that each had gripped one of the metal bars that were to be our only weapons in this attempt, since the use of rays would destroy the ship beneath, which was our only hope of life. Then, reaching forth again to the switch-case on the wall, Jhul Din at my motion threw off the cruiser's gravity-control, so that the attraction-plates built into the floor beneath us, which pulled us always downward and enabled us to walk upright and normally inside the cruiser, no longer pulled us. Instead, though, we were being pulled down now by the gravitational force of the racing ship beneath and a step through the open door would send any of us hurtling down toward that ship.

Now I gave one last glance around, even while the cruiser's walls cracked terribly again, and then swung myself over the edge of the opening in the floor, hanging by my hands from it and swinging there in the infinite void of interstellar space a score of feet above the oval ship's broad metal back. It seemed, that moment that I swung there, a time of endless length, and surely never before had any hung thus between two ships racing on through the void. Then, as another cracking roar came from the walls about me, I loosed my hold upon the edge and hurtled down through empty space toward the back of the ship below.

Down, down--that fall seemed endless as I rushed down through space, but unimpeded as I was by air-resistance it was but an instant before I had slammed down on the ship's broad back, lying motionless for an instant and then rising carefully to a sitting position. Just above me hung our racing cruiser, the opening in its bottom directly overhead, and in another moment Korus Kan had followed me, striking the ship's back beside me while I gripped him and held him tightly. Then came one of the crew, and another, and another, until in a moment the last of them was dropping down among us, Jhul Din alone remaining above. He stepped toward the opening, to lower himself and drop down to us likewise, but even as he did so I saw the great walls of the cruiser above collapsing and buckling inward as they gave at last. I motioned frantically to Jhul Din as the walls collapsed about him, saw him give one startled glance around, and then as the cruiser's sides crumpled up about him he ran forward and leapt cleanly through the opening in the floor, hurtling down toward us and striking full in our midst, just as the crumpled cruiser above, the power of its generators gone with its collapse, jerked sharply out of sight toward the crimson sun behind, hurtling away from us a twisted wreck of metal.

* * * * *

It was with something of a tightness in my throat that I saw the wreck of our familiar, faithful ship drive away from us, but I turned toward our own desperate situation. We were clinging to the back of the great oval ship as it drove on toward the Cancer cluster, with above and all about us the blackness of the void, and the galaxy's flaming suns. Ahead shone the gathered suns of the great cluster, and I knew that we must capture the ship soon if at all; so now, half creeping and half walking, we made our way along the great ship's back toward the round space-door set midway along that back. In a moment we were clustered about it, and found it closed tightly from within, as I had expected. Instantly, though, we set to work on it with the metal bars and tools we had brought with us, drilling down through the thick metal of the door while we clung, like a hundred odd tiny mites, upon the mighty ship's back as it flashed on and on.

What might lie in the ship beneath, what manner of beings might these terrible invaders be, we could not even guess, but it was our one chance to penetrate inside, and frantically we worked. Within moments more we had drilled through in a dozen places, were swinging aside the great bolts that held the door closed inside, and then were sliding it open and dropping swiftly down inside. We heard a little rush of air outward as the door opened, and knew that this ship was inhabited by air-breathing beings, at least, and then we found ourselves in the room beneath the space-door, a bare little vestibule chamber in whose side was a single square door.

Before opening this, however, we closed the round space-door above us, plugging the holes we had drilled in it by driving in sections of metal bar, and then I turned toward the door in the wall, felt carefully around it, and finally pressed a small white plate inset beside it, at which it slid silently aside. We stepped through it, bars raised ready for action. We were in a corridor, a long corridor apparently running the length of the great oval ship, but quite empty for the moment. The throbbing of great generators was loud in our ears, a throbbing much like that in our own ships but with another unfamiliar beating sound mingled with it. Silently we gazed about, then began to make our way down the corridor toward the ship's front end, toward the pilot room at its nose, stopping first to divest ourselves silently of the heavy space-suits, and then starting on.

Now we had come to an open door in the corridor's side, and peering cautiously through it we saw inside a long room holding a score or more of great, cylindrical mechanisms from which arose the throbbing and beating of the oval ship's operation. About these mechanisms were moving some two dozen of the ship's occupants, and as our eyes fell upon them we all but gasped aloud, so utterly strange and alien in shape were they even to us, who held strange shapes enough in our own gathering. Many and many a strange race had we of the Patrol seen in our long journeys through the galaxy, but all these were familiar and commonplace beside the shapes that moved in the room before us. For they were serpent-people!

Serpent-people! Long, slender shapes of wriggling pale flesh, each perhaps ten feet in length and a foot in diameter, without arms or legs of any kind, writhing swiftly from place to place snake-like, and coiling an end of their strange bodies about any object which they wished to grip. Each end of the long, cylindrical bodies was cut squarely off, as it were, and in one such flat end of each were the only features--a pair of bulging, many-lensed eyes like those of an insect, big and glassy and unwinking, and a small black opening below that was the only orifice for their breathing. These were the beings who had come out of outer space to attack our universe! These were the beings who had annihilated the galaxy's fleet and were preparing now to seize the galaxy itself!

I turned from my horror-stricken contemplation of them to Jhul Din and Korus Kan, close behind me. "The pilot room!" I whispered. "We'll make for it--get the ship's controls!"

They nodded silently, and silently we stole past the open door and down the long corridor, toward the door at its end that we knew must lead into the pilot room at the ship's nose. Past other doors we crept, all of them fortunately closed, and as we stole on toward the door at the corridor's end I began to hope that at last our luck had turned. But ironically, even as I hoped, the door at the corridor's end, not a score of feet ahead, slid suddenly aside, and out of it, out of the pilot room beyond it, came one of the writhing serpent-creatures. It stopped short on seeing us, then gave vent to a strange, hissing cry, a high, sibilant call utterly strange to my ears, but at the sound of which the doors all along the corridor behind us slid swiftly open, while through them scores of the serpent-beings writhed out, and upon us!

"The pilot room!" I yelled, above the sudden hissing cries of the serpent-creatures and the shouts of our own crew. "Head for it, Jhul Din!"

Down the corridor we leapt, and out from the pilot room there came to meet us a half-dozen of the serpent-creatures, while one remained inside at the controls still. Then they were rushing toward us, and as they reached us were coiling about us, endeavoring to crush us by encircling us with their bodies and coiling with terrific power about us. As they did so, though, our own metal bars were crashing down among them, sending them to the corridor's floor in masses of crushed flesh as we plunged on toward the pilot room. Now we were through them, had crushed them before us, and were leaping through the door, the single serpent-creature inside wheeling to face us. Before he could spring upon us, though, Jhul Din had lifted him high above his head and then had flung him far down the corridor, where he struck against the wall and fell crushed to the floor. Then Korus Kan was leaping to the controls, swiftly scanning them and then twisting and shifting them, heading the racing ship around in a great curve, away from the Cancer cluster ahead and back in toward the galaxy's center, while Jhul Din and I now sprang back down the corridor to where our crew was struggling fiercely with the hordes of serpent-creatures rushing up from all parts of the ship.

Down that corridor, and down another, through rooms and halls and twisting stairways, down through all the great ship the battle raged, the serpent-creatures leaping and coiling about us with the courage of despair while we strode among them, metal bars smashing down in great strokes, mowing them down before us. Despite their overpowering numbers they were no match for us in such hand-to-hand fighting, and they dared not use ray-tubes, like ourselves, lest they destroy their own ship about them. So we forced them on, ever sending them down in crushed, lifeless masses, as they gradually gave way before us.

I will not tell all that happened in that red time of destruction, but quarter there could be none for these things that had come to attack our universe, that had destroyed our comrade ships in thousands; and so within a half-hour more the last of the serpent-creatures had perished and we were masters of the ship, though but a scant two score of us were left to operate it, so fierce had been the battle.

* * * * *

Our first action was to clear the ship of dead, casting them loose into space through the space-doors; then Jhul Din and I made our way back into the pilot room, where Korus Kan was holding the ship to a course inward into the galaxy. The controls, he had found, were very much like those of our own cruisers, but the great generators, as we found, were much different. Instead of setting up a vibration in the ether to fling the ship forward, as in our own cruisers, they projected a force which caused a shifting of the ether itself about the ship, forming a small, ceaseless ether-current which moved at colossal speed, bearing the ship with it. The speed could thus be raised or lowered at will by controlling the amount of force projected, and as the general nature of the generators was clear enough the remaining engineers of our crew took charge of them while we fled on into the galaxy.

"We'll head straight for Canopus," I said, indicating the great white star at the galaxy's center far ahead. "We'll report at once to the Council of Suns; our capture of this ship may be of use to them."

While I spoke Korus Kan had opened the power-control wider, and now our newly captured prize was racing through the void toward the mighty central white sun at thousands upon thousands of light-speeds, though I knew that even this terrific velocity, all that we dared use inside the galaxy, was but a fraction of what the ship was capable of in outer space. Glancing about the pilot room, I endeavored for a time to penetrate the purpose of some of the things about me, as we flashed on. Above our window, as in our own cruiser, was a great space-chart, functioning similar to ours, I had no doubt, and showing the dot that was our ship flashing on between the sun-circles that lay about us. There was a device for flashing vari-colored signals, also, such as space-ships inside the galaxy use to show their identity on landing. There was, too, a cabinet containing a great mass of rolls of thin, flexible metal, inscribed with strange, precise little characters that I guessed formed the written language of the serpent-people, though they were beyond all comprehension to me. I turned back to the windows about me, gazing forth into the vista of thronging suns and worlds that lay all about us now as we flashed on into the galaxy toward Canopus.

From all the suns about us, our space-chart showed, great masses of interstellar ships were also flashing inward into the galaxy, the first exodus of the galaxy's people from the outer suns and worlds, driven inward by the fear of these mighty invaders from the outer void who had already destroyed the galaxy's fleet, and were preparing now to grasp all our universe. Far behind us I could see the great ball of suns that was the Cancer cluster, glowing in supreme splendor at the galaxy's edge, and I knew that even now, on the worlds of those thronging suns, the great fleet of the invading serpent-creatures would be settling, would be moving to and fro, wiping out the races that thronged those worlds, wrecking and annihilating the civilizations upon them and making of all the suns and worlds of the great cluster a base for their future attacks upon and conquest of the galaxy. Could we, in any way, save ourselves from that conquest? It seemed hopeless, and now, weary as we were with crushing fatigue from the swift succession of events that had crowded upon us in the last few hours, since our discovery of the invading swarm's approach, it was with a dull despair that I watched Canopus enlargening ahead as we flashed on toward it.

On between the galaxy's thronging suns we raced, our vast speed carrying us through them and through the swarming, panic-driven ships about them before they could glimpse us. Onward, inward, we flashed, veering here and there to avoid some star's far-swinging planets, dipping or rising to keep clear of the masses of traffic that were jamming the space-lanes leading inward, racing on at the same unvarying, tremendous velocity while we three in the pilot room, and the remainder of our crew beneath, strove to remain awake and conscious against the utterly crushing oppression of fatigue that pressed down upon us. At last we were flashing past the last of the suns between us and Canopus, and the great white central sun lay full before us, a gigantic globe of blazing, brilliant light. As we leapt toward it I saw Korus Kan gradually decreasing our speed, our ship slackening in its tremendous flight as we slanted down toward the planets of the great sun, and toward the inmost planet that was the center of the galaxy's government.

Down, down--our speed was dropping by hundreds of light-speeds each moment, now, as we sped down through the terrific glare of the vast white sun toward its inmost world. As we shot downward I saw that Jhul Din, now, was lying on the floor beside me, overcome by the fatigue that crowded down upon me also; only Korus Kan, of all of us, holding to the controls untiring and unaffected, the metal body in which his living organs and intelligence were cased being untrammeled by any weariness. Beneath us now lay the great masses of traffic, countless swarms of swirling ships, that had fled in to Canopus from the outer suns at the invaders' attack, and as they glimpsed our great oval craft these swarms broke wildly from before us. They took us for a raiding enemy ship, we knew, but down between them unheedingly we flashed, heading low across the surface of the great planet, still at tremendous speed.

Moments more and there loomed far ahead and beneath the colossal tower of the Council of Suns, toward which we were heading. By then I felt all consciousness and volition beginning to leave me, as an utter drowsy weariness overcame me, and I realized but dimly that Korus Kan was slanting the ship down toward the great tower, until abruptly there came from him a sharp cry. With an effort I raised my gaze and saw that from below, as we sped downward, three long, shining shapes were arrowing up to meet us. They were cruisers of our own Interstellar Patrol, and as they flashed upward there suddenly leapt from them a half-dozen brilliant shafts of the crimson rays of death, stabbing straight toward us!

_5. For the Federated Suns!_

Half conscious as I was, it seemed to me in that dread instant that the whole scene about us was but a strange, set tableau, racing ships and flashing rays frozen motionless in mid-air. Then another cry from Korus Kan jarred me back to realization.

"The signal!" he cried. "Flash the signal of the Interstellar Patrol before they annihilate us!"

At his cry a flash of realization crossed my darkened brain, and I understood that the Patrol cruisers beneath had recognized our craft as an enemy ship, that Korus Kan himself dared not leave the controls even for an instant to flash from the signal our identity. With a last summons of my waning strength I rose, staggered blindly across the room toward the switch, and then, as from beneath the crimson rays flashed blindingly toward us, grasped the switch and swept it around the dial, flashing from our ship's nose the succession of colored lights that proclaimed us of the Patrol. I felt myself sinking to the floor, then, seemed to see the three uprushing ships swerving by us at the last moment as they glimpsed the signal, and then as Korus Kan sent the ship slanting down and over the ground to land I felt a bumping shock, seemed to sink still deeper into the drowsy darkness, then knew no more.

How long it was that I had lain in that darkness, in a stupor of sleep from the weariness of our hours of rushing action, I could not guess when next I opened my eyes. I was lying upon a thick mat on a low metal couch, in a small room lit by a flood of white sunlight that poured through a tall opening in its side. On a similar couch beside me lay Jhul Din, just waking like myself; and for a moment we stared about in bewilderment. Then the sunlight, the brilliant pure white glare of light that could never be mistaken for the light of any star but Canopus, gave me my clue, and I remembered all--our discovery of the approaching swarm while patrolling the galaxy's outer edge, our flight inward and the great battle, our capture of the enemy ship and our escape. I jumped to my feet, and as I did so Korus Kan came into the room.

"You're awake!" he exclaimed, as his eyes fell on Jhul Din and me, standing. "I thought you would be, by now; the Council of Suns is waiting for us."

"The Council!" I repeated, and he nodded quickly as we strode with him to the door.

"Yes. We've been here for many hours, Dur Nal--you and Jhul Din sleeping--and in those hours the Council has been in almost constant session, deliberating this invasion of our universe."

* * * * *

While he spoke we had been traversing a narrow, gleaming-walled corridor, and now turned at right-angles into another, strode down it and through a mighty, arched doorway, and were in the tremendous amphitheater of the Council Hall, a room familiar to all in the galaxy, the vast circle of its floor covered now by the thousands of seated members. It was toward the central platform that we strode, where Serk Haj, the present Council Chief, a great, black-winged bat-figure from Deneb, stood before the vast assembly, behind him on the platform the score of seated figures who were the heads of the different departments of the galaxy's government. It was toward seats among these that he motioned us, as we reached the platform, and as we took our place in them I glanced about the great hall, interested in spite of the cosmic gravity of the moment. It was with something of a leap in my heart that I saw, among all those dissimilar thousands of strange shapes from the galaxy's farthest stars, the single human figure of the representative of my own little solar system. Then, as Serk Haj went on with the address to the assembly which our entrance had interrupted, I turned my attention to his words.

"And so," he was saying, "it is clear to you how these strange invaders from outer space, these serpent-creatures from outside our universe, have been able to annihilate all but a few ships of our great fleet, to settle upon the worlds of the great Cancer cluster as a base, to set up clear around the edge of our galaxy the watchful patrol of their ships that our scouts report. All this they have done with a fleet of a few thousand ships, have shattered our galaxy's defenses and sent wild panic flaming across that galaxy; yet these few thousand ships, as we have now learned, are but the vanguard of the countless thousands that are soon to follow, to pour down upon us in colossal, irresistible hordes!

"It was through the feat of Dur Nal, here, and his companions, that we have learned this. You have heard how, after the great battle, he and his party were able to do what never before was done in all the annals of interstellar warfare, to board and capture an enemy ship in mid-space and bring it back, intact, to Canopus. That ship has been thoroughly examined by the best of the galaxy's scientists, and in its pilot room was found a collection of metallic sheets or rolls covered with strange characters, the written records of these serpent-invaders. Upon those records for hours our greatest lexicologists have worked, and finally they have been able to decipher them, and have found in them the facts of the history and purposes of these strange invaders from outer space.

"These invaders, as the records show, are inhabitants of one of the distant universes of stars like our own, lying millions of light-years from our own in the depths of infinite outer space. So far are these mighty galaxies like our own that they appear to us but faint patches of light in the blackness of space, yet we recognize them as universes like ours, and have given them names of our own, calling one the Andromeda universe, and another the Triangulum universe, and so on. The universe of these serpent-creatures, though, although one of the nearest to our own, has never been seen or suspected by us because it is invisible from our distance, being not a living universe of flaming stars like our own and the ones we see, but a darkened, dying universe.

"It is a universe in which the thronging stars have followed nature's inexorable laws and have darkened and died, one by one, a great universe passing into death and darkness and decay as our own and all others, some time in the far future, will pass. For eons upon it had dwelt the great masses of the serpent-people, thronging its countless worlds, and as their suns began to fail them, one by one, as their universe swept toward its final darkness and death, they saw that it was necessary for them to migrate to another universe unless they wished to pass also into death. So they constructed great space-ships which were able to travel at millions of light-speeds, by causing an ether-shift about the ship; space-ships in which it would be possible to do what never had another done, to cross the vast gulf between universes. Five thousand of these, when finished, they sent out with serpent-crews and death-beam armament as an advance party which was to locate a universe satisfactory for their races and then attack it, gaining a foothold upon it while the rest of the countless serpent-hordes would build a still mightier fleet of tens of thousands of ships, which would transport all their great hordes to the universe they meant to conquer.

"So the five thousand ships drove out from the dying universe into the void, toward the Andromeda universe, the nearest to their own. Down they poured upon it in swift attack, but up to meet them rose the people of the Andromeda universe, a single race ruling all of it, whose science and power were so great that with mighty weapons they drove back and defeated the five thousand attacking ships, forcing them back into outer space again. It was clear that for the present the Andromeda universe could not be conquered, so they turned at a right angle, and after flashing a message by some means of etheric communication to the masses of their peoples in the dying universe, struck out through the infinite void in a new direction, toward our own universe.

"Across the void they came, toward our universe, and rushed in upon it after the long days of their tremendous flight through space, met and annihilated our own great fleet at the galaxy's edge, and have settled upon the Cancer cluster, gaining the foothold they desired. Soon from their dying universe will come their vast main fleet with all their hordes, and with a mighty weapon which the records mention as now being constructed in the dying universe, a weapon to annihilate all life on our worlds with terrific swiftness. They will come, in all their masses, and when they have annihilated the races of the Federated Suns and hold all our galaxy in their grasp will then sail back with renewed power to pour down upon the Andromeda universe and conquer it also. A cosmic plague of conquest and destruction, creeping through the infinite void from universe to universe!"

Serk Haj was silent a moment, and all in the great room were silent, a silence such as surely none ever experienced before. I was listening tensely, Jhul Din and Korus Kan beside me, but no whisper broke that stillness until the Council Chief's voice went calmly on.

"Doom creeps upon us," he said, "yet there is still one chance to stay that doom. We know that before attacking us the serpent-creatures attacked the Andromeda universe and were repulsed, that they plan to return to that attack after they have conquered us. So if we could send a messenger across the terrific void to the Andromeda universe, to tell its peoples of the serpent-creatures' attack upon us and their intention to invade the Andromeda universe once more, after conquering us, there is a chance that those peoples would come to our aid, with the powerful weapons with which they have already once repulsed the serpent-creatures, and would help us to crush these invaders before all their resistless hordes can pour down on our galaxy. It is a chance--a chance only--but on that chance rests the fate of our universe!

"This chance, a chance to seek the help that may save us, has been given to us by Dur Nal and his companions, in their capture of the enemy ship in mid-space; for this captured ship, with its colossal speed, can do what none of ours can do: it can cross the mighty void that lies between us and the Andromeda universe, and carry an appeal for help to that universe. The captured ship has been thoroughly studied by our scientists, for we plan to build a great fleet of others with mechanisms like it, to help in crushing these invaders whom we can not crush alone. A special crew of picked engineers and fighters, from various of our stars, has been selected for it, and now waits in it for the start of this great flight through the void that they are to make for our galaxy. The command of it, though, can go only to the one who captured it, to Dur Nal, who was first to warn us of the oncoming peril, and to his lieutenants, Jhul Din and Korus Kan!"

With the words we three snapped to our feet, the great assembly rising likewise in their excitement, and now Serk Haj turned to face us.

"Dur Nal," he said, steadily, "it is not for me to exhort you and your friends to do now your best, who have done always your best. If you can break through the enemy's patrol around the galaxy's edge, can cross the mighty void which never yet has any of our galaxy crossed, and can carry to the Andromeda universe our appeal for help, it may be that you will save us all--it may be that you will save the races and civilizations of all the Federated Suns from conquest and annihilation and death. To you three, who have spent your lives in the service of the Federated Suns, I need say no other word."

We saluted, and there was a moment of death-like silence, until I spoke. "We start at once!" I said, simply.

* * * * *

The next moment we three were striding down the broad aisle across the mighty hall, between the thousands of members who, still in the grip of that strange silence, watched us go, the one chance of our universe with us. Out of the great hall we strode, and down the big corridor, out of the great tower into the white glare of Canopus' light, and toward the long, gleaming oval shape of our waiting ship. Inside it our crew awaited us, a full eight score of strange, dissimilar shapes from every quarter of the galaxy, among them the two score who had been of my cruiser's crew and had helped capture this ship. Swiftly I gave to them our first orders, heard the space-doors clanging as we ascended to the pilot room, and then as Korus Kan stepped to the controls heard the mingled throbbing and beating of the great generators beneath.

I gave a brief signal, and Korus Kan gently opened the mighty ship's controls, its nose lifting now as it shot smoothly upward. Past us now from beneath there rushed up two cruisers of the Patrol, speeding up ahead of us and flashing signals that cleared swiftly from before us the masses of swarming traffic above, that swept hastily to either side as our long, grim ship drove up and outward. Up, up--and then we were clear of the last of them, our escorting Patrol cruisers dropping behind us now and turning back as with rapidly mounting speed we shot out from the great planet and upward, mighty Canopus blazing full behind us now, as we flashed out again from it, out with our velocity increasing by leaps and bounds, out toward the Cancer cluster once more, toward the galaxy's edge.

With the passing minutes our generators were throbbing faster and faster, and we were leaping on through the galaxy at a speed that equaled or exceeded that of our flight inward. Suns were flashing by us on either side now, at a rate that was an index to our appalling speed, but still we flashed on with greater and greater speed, racing out between the thronging suns of the galaxy toward its edge, the great ball of suns of the Cancer cluster expanding before us as we raced on in its direction. On--on--until the mighty cluster lay full to our right, until we were flashing past it, the blackness of outer space stretching ahead, and in that far-flung blackness the dim little patch of light that was the Andromeda universe. We were passing the mighty cluster, now, heading straight out into the black abyss, and my heart hammered with excitement as we flashed on. Could we pass the patrol of enemy ships around the galaxy's edge without a challenge, even? Could we--but suddenly there was a low exclamation from Korus Kan, and I turned to see, racing up beside us at our left, a close-massed squadron of five great oval ships!

They had glimpsed us on their space-charts, we knew, and now were flashing beside us through space at a speed the same as our own, drawing nearer toward us while from their white-lit pilot rooms their serpent-pilots inspected us. A moment I held my breath, as they flashed on at our side, peering toward us; then, apparently satisfied that our great oval craft was but one of their own fleet, they began to drop behind, to turn and resume their patrol. I breathed a great sigh, but the next moment caught my breath again, for the foremost of the five ships, as it dropped behind, had paused at our side, had veered a little closer as though still unsatisfied. Closer it came, and closer, until the serpent-creatures in its pilot room were clear to our eyes, as it and the ships behind it raced on with ourselves through space. Then suddenly from that foremost ship a signal of brilliant light flashed to those behind it, and at once all five drove straight toward us!

"They've seen us!" shouted Jhul Din. "They know we're not of their own fleet!"

But as he shouted I had leapt to the order-tube, had cried into it a swift command, and then as the five ships veered in toward us there leapt from our vessel's sides long, swift shafts of crimson light, the deadly red rays with which our captured ship had been equipped at Canopus, narrow brilliant shafts that touched the two foremost of those five racing ships and annihilated them even as they sprang toward us. The other three were leaping on, though, their death-beams reaching like great fingers of ghostly light through the void toward us, and I knew that we could not hope to escape them by flight, since they were as swift as our own craft; so in a moment I made decision, and shouted to Korus Kan to head our ship about.

Around we swept, in one great lightning curve, and then were rushing straight back upon the three racing ships. Into and between them we flashed, death-beams and red rays stabbing thick through the void in the instant that we passed them. I saw one of the great pale beams slice down through the rear end of our ship, heard shouts from beneath as those of our crew in that end were wiped out of existence, and then we were past, were turning swiftly in space and flashing back outward again, and saw that two of the three ships before us were visible only as great crimson flares, the other ship hanging motionless for the moment as though stunned by the destruction of its fellows.

"Four gone!" yelled Jhul Din, as we flashed toward the last of the five ships.

That last ship, though, paused only a moment as we raced toward it, and then suddenly flashed away into the void to the right, vanishing instantly from sight as it raced in flight toward the Cancer cluster. We had destroyed and routed the squadron that had challenged us, had broken through the enemy's great patrol! Korus Kan was opening our power-controls to the utmost, and now the throbbing and beating of the great generators beneath was waxing into a tremendous, thrumming drone, as we shot outward into space, the Cancer cluster falling behind us as we flashed out at a tremendous and still steadily mounting speed.