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 largening 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 di
d 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 Chiefs 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 capture
d 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 deathlike 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.
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