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 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 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 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.
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.
Out-out-into the vast black vault of sheer outer space that lay stretched before and about us now, the awful velocity of our great craft increasing by tens of thousands, by hundreds of thousands of light-speeds, as we shot out into the untrammeled void. Behind us the mighty, disk-like mass of flaming stars that was our universe was contracting in size each moment, dwindling and diminishing, but before us there glowed out in the vast blackness misty little patches of light, universes of suns inconceivably remote from our own. Strongest among them glowed a single light-patch, full before us, and it was on it that our eyes were fixed as our ship at utmost speed plunged on. It was the Andromeda universe, and we were flashing out into the mighty void of outer space toward it at a full ten million light-speeds, to seek the help which alone could save our universe from doom.