Tall, steady figures of strange, thick green gas they stood there, regarding me, I knew. They had gathered all their forces to save a universe alien to themselves, to crush the serpent-peoples, and had placed all those forces under the command of myself, an alien to them. The greatness of their spirit, the calm, vast magnanimity of them, struck home to me in that moment, and impulsively I reached a hand out toward them once more, felt it grasped and gripped as though by solid flesh by a score of gaseous arms; a moment in which, across all the differences of mind and shape, the beings of two universes gripped hands in kinship of spirit. Then I had turned from them, and with Jhul Din was moving into our great ship, up to the pilot room, where the Spican took his position at the controls. The space-door below slammed shut, our generators throbbed suddenly, and then we were slanting smoothly upward.
Before me stood a tall, square instrument bearing a bank of black keys-keys that transmitted to the ships of our vast fleet my formation and speed orders, as I pressed them. I pressed one now, as we shot upward, glimpsed a long rank of ships on the ground behind and beneath us rising smoothly after us in answer, pressed another and saw another rank rising and following, until within a few moments more the whole of the vast fleet, a hundred thousand gleaming ships, had risen and was driving up and outward, with our flagship in the van. Up we moved, until we were slanting up over the ring of mighty suns that encircled the great central worlds and the swarms of smaller planets, that central world vanishing behind us as we flashed on, and the great circle of suns about it, and the suns beside us, all dropping smoothly behind.
Out between those great circles of suns we moved, our great fleet in a long, streaming line to avoid all danger of collisions with the suns and worlds about us. I saw the Andromedans in the pilot room with me standing motionless by its windows as we flashed on past the circled suns and swarming worlds of their universe, knew that they were watching those suns and worlds drop behind as they moved out to the great struggle that would decide the fate of their universe as well as of my own. Then at last we were racing out between the last great circles of suns, out over the edge of the Andromeda universe into the blackness and emptiness of outer space once more.
Now as the great darkness of the void lay before us, I pressed the keys before me in swift succession, and at once the thousands of ships behind me leapt into a new formation, that of a colossal hollow pyramid that flashed through space with my flag-ship at its apex. Faster and faster our great fleet shot out into the void, the tremendous mass of ships behind me uniformly increasing their speed, until at last at our utmost velocity we were racing on toward the serpent-universe ahead.
Outward, into the darkness and silence of the eternal void, we were flashing once more, but as I stood with Jhul Din there in the pilot room, watching the great Andromeda universe dwindling in the darkness behind us, no exultation filled me. We had done what none in our galaxy ever before had done, had crossed the gulf and procured the aid with which we were racing to crush our enemies before they could pour down upon us, but my thoughts were not on these things but on the friends we were leaving behind us. Somewhere out in the void from that Andromeda universe, Korus Kan had gone to his death with the sun-swinging ships, and as we sped on through the void toward the serpent-universe it was the thought of that that held our minds rather than that of the great battle before us.
Hour upon hour of swift flight was dropping behind us as we raced steadily and smoothly on, detouring far around the great heat-regions and radio-active regions that we encountered, heading on toward the serpent-universe that was glowing ever broader before us. Smooth, immeasurable and endless they seemed, those hours of swift and steady flight, but at last we became aware that they were coming to an end, the dying universe ahead a great dim glow across all the blackness of the firmament. Ever our eyes hung upon that misty region of light as we flashed nearer and nearer to it, and ever the same doubt, the same wonder, rose and grew in our minds. Could we, really, crush and destroy the serpent-peoples in this strange universe? What would be the outcome of the tremendous battle we must fight in it to prevent the serpent-hordes from pouring across space toward our own universe?
Before us now the somber splendor of the dying universe filled the heavens, a vast mass of dead and dying suns, black and burned-out stars and suns of smoky crimson, glowing in the blackness of space like the embers of a mighty, dying fire. Around that great, dim-glowing mass we could make out the gigantic shell of flickering blue light, all but invisible, that surrounded it, the titanic and impenetrable wall of vibrations that enclosed it. In toward that wall our vast fleet was racing, moving at slackening speed as I touched a key before me, until at last the mighty flickering barrier loomed close ahead, the single opening in it, guarded by the huge space-forts on each side, lying straight before us. And as we drew within sight of that opening we saw, hanging in space just inside it, massed solidly across it, a thousand oval ships.
"The serpent-ships," I exclaimed. "They're going to hold the gate of their universe against us."
Jhul Din was staring at them as though puzzled. "But why only a thousand ships?" he said. "Why haven't they massed all their great fleet there at the gate-"
But I had turned, had pressed the keys before me in swift succession, and at once our tremendous fleet had slowed and smoothly halted, hanging there in space. Then, as I depressed still other keys, our vast mass of ships split smoothly into three separate masses, my flag-ship at the van of the central mass, the others moving to right and to left of us. A moment our three great masses of ships hung there, and then those on either side of us had flashed toward the great space-forts that guarded each side of the great opening, while our own central mass, my ship at its head, drove straight in toward the great opening itself.
Straight toward and into the opening raced our close-massed ships and then the next moment it seemed that all the universe about was transformed into a single awful mass of pale beams that stabbed toward and through us from the space-forts on each side and from the close-massed ships ahead. How our own ship escaped annihilation in that first moment of terrific, reeling shock, I cannot guess; since behind and about us scores of our ships were driving crazily away, their occupants annihilated by the deadly beams. Yet from all our own craft, reeling blindly as they were there in the opening, our cylinders were loosing their shafts of invisible force upon the space-forts to each side and upon the serpent-ships that leapt toward us from ahead. Then as those ships met ours, there in the narrow opening with the huge towering space-forts at each side, there ensued a moment of battle so terrific-battle more awful in its concentrated fury than any I had ever yet experienced-that it seemed impossible that ships and living beings could fight thus and live. Terrific was the scene about us-the vast black vault of infinite outer space behind us, the far-flung, dim-glowing mass of the dying universe before us, the gigantic wall of pale blue flickering light that separated the two, the single opening in that wall, flanked by the titanic metal space-forts, in which our thousands of close-massed ships charged forward toward the on-rushing serpent-ships.
* * *
Ships were crashing and smashing as we met them, death-beams were whirling thick from their ships and from the huge space-forts, serpent-craft were crumpling and collapsing beneath our shafts of force-and still our own ships were reeling away in scores as the death-beams found them. I knew that not for long could we continue this suicidal combat, since though the serpent-ships before us were being swiftly wiped out, the space-forts on each side still played their beams upon us with deadly effect. The other two divisions of our great fleet, dashing to attack the space-forts from outside while we battled there in the opening between them, had been thrust back, I saw, from each attack by the masses of pale beams that sprang from the forts.
But as the whole struggle hung thus in doubt, as our ships fell in fierce battle there in the opening beneath the beams of the forts, I saw a score of ships among those attacking the right-hand fort drive suddenly tow
ard the fort with all their terrific utmost speed, leaping toward it like great thunderbolts of metal. From the great castle the death-beams sprang toward that score of ships, sweeping through them and wiping all life instantly from them, but before the ships had time to swerve or reel aside from that mad onward flight their terrific speed had carried them onward, and with a mighty, shattering collision they had crashed straight into the great fort's side.
I saw the great metal walls of the space-fort buckling and collapsing beneath that awful impact, and then all the space-fort had collapsed also, like a thing of paper, crushing within itself the serpent-creatures and generators and death-beam tubes it had held. To our left, another score of ships were leaping toward the left-hand fort in the same manner, and as they crashed into it, racing on through a storm of death-beams that swept through them, the left-hand space-fort too had buckled and crumpled and collapsed. At the same moment the last of the thousand serpent-ships before us was falling beneath our force-shafts, and then the great opening lay clear before us, with neither serpent-ships nor space-forts now in sight. We had forced the gates of the serpent-universe.
Then, our vast fleet massing together once more, we swept in through the opening, in a long column, into the dying universe. A full two thousand of our hundred thousand ships we had lost in that mad attack on the great gates, but heeded that but little as we flashed now into the serpent-creatures' universe. Through the dead and dying suns we sped, holding to a close-massed formation and moving slowly and cautiously forward. At every moment I expected the great serpent-fleet to burst out upon us from behind some dead or dying sun, for I knew that their allowing us to advance through their universe thus unhindered meant only that they had prepared some ambush for us. Yet as we sped in toward the center of the dying universe, there appeared no single enemy craft about us or on our space-charts, a total absence of all serpent-ships that began to affect our nerves as we drove ever more tensely forward.
At last there appeared far ahead the majestic trio of giant, crimson suns that swung at this universe's heart, and as we moved down toward these we knew that at last the final struggle was at hand, since between those suns turned the great world that was the heart of the serpent-civilization. Down toward that world we slanted smoothly, expecting every moment the uprush from it of the great serpent-fleet; yet still were we unchallenged and unattacked as we moved downward. Upon us there leapt no serpent-ships; in space about us, as we sank lower and lower, were no craft other than our own. In breathless silence we watched, sinking down toward the great sphere's surface, until at last we hung at a bare thousand feet above that surface, the mighty city of blue force stretching from horizon to horizon beneath us. And at sight of that city there burst from us wild, stunned cries.
For the mighty city was-empty! Empty, lifeless, its streets deserted and bare, its vast mass of towering structures of blue vibrations without occupant of any kind! No single serpent-shape moved in all that tremendous city, and I saw that upon the great clearing where the vast serpent-fleet and the colossal death-beam cone had rested there was now nothing. The world beneath us, the universe about us, were a world, universe-deserted!
"Too late!" Jhul Din's cry came to my ears like the voice of doom. "The defense of the gate was only to delay us, and the serpent-races have gone-they've struck! They've massed all their hordes in their great fleet and with their giant death-beam cone have sailed out across the void to attack our universe. We're too late."
Too late! The thought beat upon my brain like drumbeats of horror as we stood there, in utter silence. All had been in vain-our tremendous journey, our fierce struggles, the loss of Korus Kan-since already far across the void the serpent-hordes in their countless ships were rushing toward our universe, where their vanguard had prepared a foothold for them. They had known that we were summoning help from the Andromeda universe, had swiftly gathered and sailed on their great attack, leaving only a force at the great gate to delay us. Too late! Then suddenly resolution flamed again inside me, and I pressed swiftly the keys before me, sent our whole fleet turning and speeding outward again-out through the dying universe away from the great trio of suns at its center-out toward the great opening in the vibration-wall.
"Too late-no!" I shouted. "We'll follow them across the void toward our own universe. They could not have completed that great death-beam cone yet-they've taken it with them to our own universe to complete it there-and if we can reach them and attack them before they have time to complete it, we yet may save our universe."
Now our great fleet was rushing toward and through the opening in the vibration-wall, out into the void of outer space once more. There we halted, massed again in our pyramidal flight-formation, and then were turning slowly toward the left, toward the far little patch of glowing light that was our universe. Then we were moving toward it, with swiftly gathering speed, faster and faster, until at our utmost velocity we were racing through the infinite immensities of space toward it; flashing on toward the last act of the vast, cosmic drama that was rising now to its climax; rushing on through the void toward the final great battle in which the destinies of three mighty universes and all their suns and worlds and peoples were to be decided for all time.
14: Back to the Galaxy
Standing once more in the pilot room, with Jhul Din at the controls beside me, I stared out through the room's fore-windows, straining my vision out through the cosmic darkness that lay about our onward-rushing ships. Far ahead, in that darkness, lay a great, glowing mass of light, lay a radiant, disk-like mass that was resolving itself into a great swarm of brilliant stars as we rushed ever on toward it. In silence we two gazed toward it, for it was our own great galaxy that lay before us, toward which for day upon dragging day, hour upon slow hour, our mighty fleet had rushed on and on.
Now, as we gazed toward it, waxing there in splendor before us in the lightless heavens, I could not but reflect upon how infinitely strange and far a journey had been ours since we had left it, across what infinities of trackless space and upon what alien suns and worlds we had gone. Out into the infinite we had gone for the help that might save our universe, and now out of the infinite we were coming with that help, but two returning where three had gone out. Yet would the help we brought be in time to save our galaxy? Already the great serpent-hordes, we knew, would have reached that galaxy, would have settled upon the suns and worlds of the great Cancer cluster where their vanguard had made for them a base, and there they would be laboring to complete the colossal death-beam cone with which they could wipe out all the life on all the galaxy's worlds, and all our own great fleet. Could we reach them and conquer them before they completed that great cone of death?
We were within a few score hours of the galaxy ahead, I knew, and as we raced on toward it at the same unvarying velocity, its individual greater stars were burning out more clearly, and the great Cancer cluster was a tiny ball of light at the glowing swarm's edge. Countless billions of miles of space lay between us and that cluster still, I knew, yet it was with something of hope that I watched it as we flashed on. For though inside it the gigantic death-cone might be approaching completion, it would not be long before our vast fleet would be pouring down upon that cluster and upon the serpent-hordes within it, before the great cone could be finished.
As I mused thus, though, there came a low exclamation from Jhul Din, and I turned to find him peering forward into the void with a gaze suddenly tense. Then he had turned toward me and was pointing ahead and to the left into the darkness before us.
"One of the great heat-regions." he exclaimed.
I gazed out toward it and in a moment I, too, had seen it-a dim, faint little glow of red light, flickering there in the darkness of space before us and to the left. Steadily that little glow was broadening, deepening, though, while our temperature-dials were recording swiftly rising heat outside as we neared it. There was no need to change the course of our fleet, though, since the heat-region lay toward the left and our present course woul
d take us safely past its right edge. It was, perhaps, the same region into which we had blundered on our outward flight, and with interest we watched it as our great fleet shot forward and along its outer edge. It was a vast area of glowing crimson light to our left, now, a terrific furnace of heat-vibrations loosed by the collision of the great ether-currents through which we were plunging. Then, just as our fleet was speeding directly past the mighty, glowing region, along its outer edge, our prow turned slowly toward the left, toward the heat-region, and then we were racing straight inward toward the region's fiery heart.
For an instant I stared in stunned amazement as our ship shifted thus, then whirled around to the Spican. "Jhul Din!" I exclaimed. "The controls. The ship's heading into the heat-region."
But already he was twisting frantically at the controls, and now he looked up wildly toward me. "The ship doesn't answer the controls." he cried. "It's heading straight inward-and the ships behind us-" And he pointed up toward the space-chart, where I saw now that as they rushed on, the thousands of ships behind us were shifting their course like our own and racing into the heat-region after us-racing in like us toward a fiery death. Then, as I gazed stupefied up toward the space-chart, I saw something else, saw that inches to the left of our fleet on the chart, away on the other side of the glowing heat-region from us, there hung a half-thousand ships, that showed on the chart as a close-massed swarm of dots, hanging there motionless. And as I saw them I understood, and with understanding a great shout broke from me.
Outside the Universe ip-4 Page 14