I nodded now, with sudden understanding. "Then that's the way that they discovered our peril-came to save us," I said. "That's what they're telling us."
But now the Andromedan had held the little instrument forward to me, and as I took it, in some perplexity, he silently indicated two little round metal plates inset on its bottom, which he had grasped when holding the thing and which I now grasped in turn, pressing the tiny control button as I did so. The next instant a current of thrilling force seemed racing up my arms, through my brain, and in the little glowing sphere appeared only a confusion of vague forms. Then, as my brain cleared, I concentrated my thoughts on our mission and its reason; and at once, in the instrument's glowing sphere, there appeared clearly the five thousand serpent-ships attacking our universe, destroying our fleet by means of their death-beams and attraction-ships, settling upon the worlds and suns of the Cancer cluster. Then, with the shifting of my thoughts, there was a glimpse of our ship flashing out into the void from our own universe toward that of the Andromeda, and then the little sphere had gone black as I snapped off the button that controlled it.
For the moment we could not know whether we had been fully understood by the beings before us, but the next instant one of them pointed with a gaseous limb toward the gathered suns of the Andromeda universe, flaring in the blackness ahead, and as we nodded and pointed also, they stepped over beside us. The next moment the opening in the under side of the ship above and the space-door in our own ship had clanged shut, and as the whole great fleet of ships about us began to move toward the Andromeda universe, Korus Kan opened up the power of our own generators, moving smoothly along among them. Within moments more, the strange, gaseous forms of the Andromedans standing there beside us, our ship and all those about it were flashing at full speed toward the great galaxy ahead.
From the ship's hull beneath I could hear an odd, grating sound, as of the clash of metal on metal, that continued to come to my ears as we flashed on, but in the moments, the hours that followed, I paid but small attention to it, engrossed as we all were in the magnificent spectacle of the universe ahead. Like a tremendous belt of suns across the black heavens it was, largening in vastness and brilliance with every moment that we flashed nearer, until by the time we had raced toward it for a half-score of hours it seemed to fill all the firmament before us with its hosts of flaming stars. We were flashing on in the same course as the ships about us, heading toward a spot where there shone two great yellow suns that were like twin wardens of this mighty universe. And as we hummed through the void toward them, sweeping in nearer to this great galaxy's edge, the ships about us and our own ship, too, had begun to slacken their tremendous speed, until at last at a reduced velocity we were driving in past the outmost suns of the Andromeda universe.
The dull grating sound from beneath was persisting, still, but now interest in all else had left me as there spread before and about me the wonders of this stupendous universe. A universe it was as large as our own, as large as the dying serpent-universe, but different from either. For if ours was a young universe, with the majority of our stars glowing with blue and white-hot youth, and the serpent-universe an aged and dying one, with burned-out and waning crimson suns, this one before us was a universe in its prime-a universe the vast majority of whose suns were flaming yellow with their greatest splendor, a golden galaxy of living stars infinitely different from the dim, dying universe from which we had just escaped, and infinitely different, too, from the giant, white, young suns and raw, vast nebulae of our own youthful universe.
As we sped in between those gathered, flaming suns, though, as we drove in past the edge of their great mass, my eyes began to take in their position and arrangement, and as they did so I saw that not alone in age or youthfulness was this universe different from any other I had seen. For as we flashed into the thronging suns, past a great group of them massed to our right, I saw that the suns of that group were gathered in a great circle, a score of mighty flaming suns, each set in position with mathematical exactness, forming a perfect circle as they hung here in space, one of the two great yellow suns I had glimpsed from afar having a place in that circle. And inside that mighty circle of suns I glimpsed a vast mass of swarming planets-hundreds, thousands even, of great, turning worlds that moved in regular orbits inside the great ring of suns about them, lit and warmed perpetually by their encircling fires.
Stupefied, stunned, by that tremendous sight, I did not, could not, for the moment understand the significance of what I was seeing. But as we flashed on past the great circle and its swarming enclosed planets, as we approached another close group of suns, I saw that it, too, was formed of a score or more of great suns grouped in a perfect circle like the first, and that inside that circle of suns there swung also hundreds and thousands of whirling worlds! And beyond it shone another mighty ring of suns, and another, and others, as far as the eye could reach, all the suns in all this tremendous universe being grouped by the score into great circles inside of which swung countless planets! And then, at last, there broke upon my reeling brain the meaning of what I was seeing.
"Suns in circles," I cried, as I gazed out across that mighty vista. "They've done this themselves-consciously, deliberately. They've placed all the suns of their universe in great circle-groups, so that inside those circles their countless peoples can exist."
For I saw, now, that it was so, that only by intelligent design could the countless swarms of thronging suns about us ever have been placed in these mathematically perfect circles, inside which their great planets swung. Long ago their universe must have been much like our own, a great chaos of suns reeling blindly in all directions, swarming like a vast hive of stars, each with its own few planets moving about it But as their numbers had increased, as they had come to need every world, every planet for their existence, they had grasped their suns with titanic, unguessable forces, had swung them from their accustomed chaos into order, into great circles, placing inside those circles all their countless worlds-worlds of which thousands could then exist upon the light and heat of a mere score of suns by having those suns grouped in a ring about them.
Now, driving in past great circle after circle of flaming suns, past the countless planets that moved inside those circles, we were flashing on with the ships about us toward the center of this strange and mighty universe. On our space-chart I could see that thick about us were great masses of interstellar traffic, which cleared away before us as we drove inward. Circle after circle of fiery suns we were leaving behind, mass upon mass of swarming planets inside, but never on our space-charts showed any wandering dark-stars, or meteor-swarms, or vagabond, sunless worlds, all matter in this universe apparently having been swept up by the Andromedans and used as habitations for their races, inside the great sun-circles. A gigantic mass of perfectly grouped stars they stretched about us, those sun-circles, filling the heavens about us; but now, far ahead, there shone out ever more brilliant at the center of this great universe another great circle of suns, that seemed the largest in all this universe. A score of titanic, flaming stars, they hung there at this galaxy's center, and it was toward these that our racing ships were heading.
Toward them we gazed with intense interest as our ships fled on, but suddenly were startled back to realization of our immediate surroundings by a great rumbling and grating from beneath, our ship swaying to one side and heeling sickeningly over, even as it flashed ahead. In sudden tense silence we stood, listening to that rumbling and cracking beneath, and then up from the speech-tube beside me there came a startled cry from one of our crew below.
"The ship's splitting," he cried. "The walls have been grating and giving ever since we ran through that radioactive disintegrating-region-and now the ship's beginning to break in two."
There was an instant of silence in the pilot room, the only sound that fearful grating rumble from beneath as gradually the ship's walls, weakened and crumbled by the disintegrating vibrations of the radio-active region through which we
had plunged, began at last to split. A moment more, we knew, would see our ship riven apart there in space, with instant annihilation the fate of all of us. Silent, stunned, for a moment we stood there, the Andromedans beside us comprehending the situation as well as ourselves; then I whirled around to Korus' Kan, flung my arm up toward the great central sun-circle that lay now full ahead, nearest of all the sun-groups to our onward-racing ships.
"Full speed!" I cried to him. "There's a chance still that we can get to those suns and worlds before the ship breaks up." With that cry the Antarian flung open the power-control, and instantly our ship, rumbling and groaning still as its walls gave about us, plunged on at utmost speed. I knew that we had perhaps a chance in a thousand to reach the worlds inside that sun-circle before our craft broke beneath our feet, but it was our only chance, and as we reeled on now with the generators roaring their greatest power, and with a thunderous, cracking roar rising from beneath also as our walls parted, it was with the consciousness that the next few moments would seal our fate. The great fleet of Andromedan ships about us had leapt forward with us, were behind and about us, but for the moment all our attention was centered upon the great circle of suns ahead, largening before us swiftly as with one last great burst of speed our ship shot through the void toward it.
Our ship swayed blindly over, now, even as it reeled on through space, another great crash of riven metal coming to our ears from beneath, the floor slanting steeply up beneath us. Flung against the wall as we were, though, Korus Kan clung still to the controls, heading our swaying flying-ship straight on toward the sun-circle, until in a moment more we had reached that circle, were slanting downward at the same terrific speed above that great ring of mighty suns. Inside that vast circle there moved a mighty swarm of thronging worlds, as in the other sun-circles, but at the very center of this vast swarm of planets there hung motionless a single gigantic planet, largest by far of all in this universe, a huge central world down toward which our own crazily swaying ships and the ships about us were slanting.
Down-down-there was a sudden rush of air about our ship as we shot toward the surface of the great planet, and I had a flashing glimpse of that surface, scores of miles beneath, through our window-a smooth, park-like surface swarming with hordes of the gaseous Andromedans and with ascending and descending ships, a surface in which I seemed to glimpse innumerable round, well-like openings, but upon which I could see no buildings. Abruptly, though, even as I glanced downward, there came a tremendous final cracking from our ship's center, each end tipped sharply down from that center as the crumbling craft broke cleanly in half, and then the two wrecked halves of it were whirling down toward the surface of the great world far below.
12: The Council Decides
Of the moment following, while we rushed thus down to death, flung into a corner of the pilot room by the ship's splitting, I remember most clearly the rush of cold air that shrieked through our falling half. Had our ship broken in empty space instead of in the air of that great world's atmosphere, we would have met instant annihilation; since even the gaseous Andromedans, as I was later to find, could not live save in air, like ourselves, their gaseous bodies disintegrating in any other element. For the moment, though, as we flashed down toward the surface of the world beneath, it seemed that death for us had been delayed but a moment. We were whirled crazily around as our wrecked half of the ship fell, and through the window I had a glimpse of the ground beneath, rushing up to meet us with appalling speed. I tensed for the crash, and for death, as it leapt up toward us-nearer-nearer-
There was a hoarse cry from Jhul Din, and I glimpsed in the next instant a dark, great shape that swooped down past and beneath us from above. The next instant, just as I waited for the annihilating impact with the ground, there was a slight jar, a clang of metal against metal from beneath, and then swiftly, miraculously, our wild fall was slackening. In another moment the ground was just beneath us, and smoothly and slowly we sank downward, coming to rest upon it without a jar! I staggered up to the window, gazing forth, stunned by that sudden escape from inescapable annihilation, and then saw the explanation of it. Our half of the wrecked ship was resting upon the back of one of the great, flat Andromedan ships, that had flashed down under it and caught it upon itself, bearing us down to the ground and saving us from the crash and from death.
A moment more and we were stumbling out of the pilot room, down to the ground from the Andromedan ship on which we rested. As we reached it I saw that the other falling half of our ship had been saved in the same way by another Andromedan craft, lying close beside us on that craft with the members of our crew in it pouring out to join us. Another instant and they stood with us, a vast mass of the gliding, gaseous Andromedans that swarmed on this world's surface having collected about us, a strange, silent horde that I knew were contemplating us with their alien sense of sight. Quickly toward us, though, came the half-dozen Andromedans who had been with us in the ship and had escaped with us, leading us now through the throngs of gaseous figures about us toward some destination of their own.
As we moved along with them, though, our interest was not so much in our destination as in the stupendous and unparalleled scene about us. Far away to the distant horizons stretched the smooth surface of this great world, covered with an even growth of jet-black sod that gave it an extraordinarily park-like appearance, with here and there tall, spiked growths or plants of the same ebon black. That blackness, as I guessed, was due to the perpetual, fierce light of the great ring of suns that belted the firmament overhead, the circle of suns at whose center this mighty planet hung, and whose ceaseless light would naturally give to this world's vegetation a pigmentation of deepest black. The belt of giant suns above, the countless swarms of Andromedans about us, like gliding pillars of misty green gas, the ebon vegetation, the masses of mighty ships that rose and descended ceaselessly in the broad areas set aside for them-all these held us silent with the silence of awe, as with our guides we moved on.
It was none of these things, though, wonderful as they were, that intrigued me most of all about us-it was the total absence of buildings, of visible structures or habitations, on all the surface of this world. The smooth black sod, the countless Andromedan throngs, the departing and arriving ships-these were all that were visible about us, all except a great number of round, well-like shafts that opened in the ground everywhere about us. These shafts were some six feet across, and were placed always in pairs, or groups of two, and as I gave them more attention I saw, in a moment, that they held the answer to the absence of all buildings about us. For into them and out of them the gaseous Andromedans were moving in ceaseless streams, moving straight into one empty shaft and sinking smoothly downward out of sight, upheld by some force at the shaft's bottom beneath that nullified gravity just enough to make it possible for them to float gently down. From the other shaft of the pair, too, other Andromedans would be rising smoothly upward through the air, reaching the surface and gliding away, that other ascending shaft having at its bottom a constant force sufficient not only to nullify completely the pull of gravity but to give all in the shaft a slight upward thrust.
Into these shafts, as we moved past them, I glanced down, and saw that far beneath they opened into brilliant-lit rooms and halls, some of great size. I understood, then, how they had come to be used, how the Andromedans, their vast hordes cramped upon the surface of their worlds, had removed all buildings from the surface and had sunk them deep in the ground itself, subterranean buildings that could be entered or left by the ascending and descending shafts, and that gave them all the surface of their worlds free for their ships and to move about on. In and out of the great buildings sunken in the ground beneath us were moving constant streams of Andromedans, up and down the shafts; and now we saw that before us lay a pair of such shafts much greater in size than all others we had seen, and the center of a great rush of traffic of the gaseous beings about us. It was toward these greater shafts that our Andromedan companions we
re leading us, the figures before us giving way as we approached.
A moment more and we stood at the edge of the descending shaft, the Andromedans beside us motioning toward it and moving over its edge, sinking smoothly downward. Hesitatingly I followed, stepped from the edge into the empty air of the shaft; but the next moment my fear left me, for instead of plunging down a dead weight, I and my companions who had followed me were sinking downward as gently as though gripped and upheld by unseen hands. Down we floated, through the great shaft bright-lit by the belted suns above, down until we were sinking down out of the shaft itself into a vast, white-lit hall that stretched away for a great distance in all directions from us, and down from the center of whose ceiling, where the two great shafts opened from above, we were sinking.
* * *
Smoothly we sank downward from the great hall's ceiling to its floor, landing upon a great disk inset in that floor beneath the descending shaft and glowing with dark purple light, the glowing force that combated gravitation enough in the shaft above it to allow us to float gently down. For the moment, though, I paid not so much attention to it as to the strange, vast hall in which we now stood. Colossal in size and circular of shape, the mighty, white-lit room was as large or larger even than the great Council Hall of the Federated Suns, in our own universe, though it was far different in appearance. There were in it no ranks of seats, the smooth floor being divided by crossing black lines into thousands of squares of equal size, and in each of those squares there rested, motionless, one of the gaseous Andromedans, thousands upon thousands of them, like massed columns of thick green vapor, being grouped in the great room about us.
We stood ourselves on a section of the floor at the room's very center, raised a few feet above the rest of the floor, and except for the two purple-glowing disks beneath the ascension and descension shafts the only object upon this raised portion was a great globe of what seemed misty glass, exactly like the tiny one with which the Andromedans had first communicated with us, but of vastly greater size, being some dozen feet in diameter. Toward this, as we hesitated there at the center of that gigantic assemblage of strange, silent figures, there moved the leader of the Andromedans who had accompanied us. He grasped with his two gaseous arms the metal studs that projected out from the great globe's base, and at once the misty sphere glowed with inward light, while in it appeared the thousand Andromedan ships, flashing out into the void, rescuing us from the serpent-fleet, and bringing us back into their own universe, a swift succession of explanatory scenes.
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