Part 12

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 can not 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 onrushing 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 toward that 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 drum-beats 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 would 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.

"Attraction-ships!" I cried. "It's an ambush the serpent-fleet left for us if we followed them! Attraction-ships hanging there on the other side of the heat-region and pulling our ships toward themselves, and toward and into that region!"

With that cry I leapt forward, pressing swiftly a half-dozen of the keys before me, flashing an order for all ships behind to turn at right-angles immediately. Watching the chart, though, I saw that nearly all our mighty fleet was now moving into the heat-region, caught in the grip of the attraction-ships beyond it. As my order flashed, though, the last ships of our fleet, not more than a thousand in number, had turned immediately, just before they too had raced into the deadly grip, and were rushing clear. Then, as their occupants, too, saw upon the space-charts the attraction-ships hovering beyond the heat-region, I saw them race away and around the great glowing region's edge toward those attraction-ships, while the rest of all our mighty fleet was drawn farther and farther in toward its fiery heart.

All about us now was the faint red glow of the heat-region's outer portions, while swiftly the heat inside our ship was increasing, the air in the pilot room being already almost too warm to breathe. Onward we were being pulled, irresistibly, our walls beginning already to warp and crack beneath the terrific temperatures outside. Gazing forward through the glare of the great region's fiery heart, even as we were swept in toward it, I could make out through our distance-windows a swarm of great, disk-shaped craft hanging beyond the heat-region, the attraction-ships that were pulling us on to doom. Around the great region's edge toward those disk-craft our own thousand escaped ships were flashing, but before ever they could reach them, it seemed, we must perish, so awful had the heat about us become.

Then I saw our thousand ships, racing about the great region's edge, pouring down on the five hundred attraction-ships, rushing down upon them in a mad swooping charge. About ourselves the crimson glare had become all but blinding, and our walls were glowing dull red, the air about us stifling. Already Jhul Din was swaying at the controls beneath that overpowering heat, and as our walls wrenched and cracked again I knew that a moment more of the terrific heat into which we were being pulled would mean the end. But even with that realization I shouted with sudden hope, since through our tele-magnifier I had glimpsed one after another of the attraction-ships, far on the other side of the heat-region, reeling and crumpling beneath the force-shafts of our thousand attacking ships!

With every one of those attraction-ships destroyed, the pull that was drawing us into the fiery maelstrom of light and heat was lessening in strength, drawing us ever more slowly forward. But forward still we were moving, pulled by the remaining attraction-ships that fought still desperately against the thousand attacking craft, fighting to the end in their great effort to destroy all our fleet. Into the very inmost flaming heart of the great region we were plunging, now, the whole universe about us seeming but a single thunderous inferno of blood-like light and burning heat. Then, as choking and reeling I felt the ship quiver violently with the approaching end, I saw our thousand or less attacking ships beyond crashing down upon the resisting attraction-ships in one irresistible, headlong charge, and as those great disk-ships, flickering with attractive force, crumpled and vanished beneath that last wild swoop, the pull upon us suddenly relaxed, vanished also. The next moment we had shot the controls sharply over, and our ship and all the ships behind it were shooting out of that hell of heat and light into empty space once more.

Now, as we sped out into the clean cold void of space again, our ships again taking up their formation and heading toward the galaxy, I turned to Jhul Din.

"It's their last attempt to stop us!" I cried. "But we've won clear--nothing can keep us from reaching them now!"

And as our great fleet again shot forward at full speed through the void I stood now no longer tense or anxious but with the old lust for battle burning up in me stood grimly silent with eyes upon the universe ahead as its glowing mass of stars broadened across the heavens before us. For now, I knew, we had plunged through the last trap, the last delay, by which the serpent-creatures had planned to hold back and destroy us, and now nothing could prevent the final attack toward which we were racing. Our great flight outward from our galaxy for help, our terrible captivity in the dying universe, our mad flight to the Andromeda universe, and our struggle there in which one of us had gone to his end, our sailing for the dying universe with the great Andromedan fleet--all these things were drawing now toward their climax, when we were to pour down on the Cancer cluster and the serpent-creatures there in our great attack.

Humming, throbbing, droning, on through the void our great fleet shot, force-shaft cylinders and other mechanisms clanging now beneath us as our Andromedan crew cleared the decks below for action. With every hour, every moment, the galaxy's stars were shining in greater splendor ahead, a giant belt of suns across the firmament before us. My eyes roved across them, from the yellow splendor of Capella to the white brilliance of Rigel, and then something of emotion rose in me as they shifted to Antares, the great crimson star that had been Korus Kan's home sun. But my eyes hardened again as they turned toward the Cancer cluster, a great ball of suns glowing in resplendent glory at the galaxy's edge before us; for well I knew that upon the thronging worlds of its clustered suns the countless races of the serpent-creatures were gathered now, completing the gigantic death-beam cone with which they would sweep out to annihilate all life in our galaxy save themselves. Straight toward that ball of suns our fleet was leaping, and now Jhul Din turned toward me.

"You're going to drive with our fleet straight into the cluster itself?" he asked, and I nodded grimly.

"It's our only chance," I said. "All the serpent-hordes are on the worlds inside it, and we've got to reach it to destroy that great cone before they finish it."

Now the galaxy's flaring suns filled the heavens before us as our mighty armada raced in through the outer void toward them, the Cancer cluster flaming ahead in all the blinding glory of its gathered suns, those suns appearing on the upper part of our space-chart as a mass of glowing little circles, toward which our vast swarm of ship-dots was speeding. Minutes more of our terrific speed would see us reaching that cluster, I knew, and I turned toward the bank of keys before me to shift our great fleet's mass into a formation that would allow us to pour down into that ball of suns in our great attack. But as I did so, as I reached toward those keys, there came from Jhul Din a cry that held me rigid. He was gazing up toward the space-chart, and pointing.

"Look--in the cluster!" he cried. "Those dots--those ships----!"

I looked swiftly up, saw that among the massed sun-circles of the Cancer cluster, on the chart, were moving a countless number of tiny dots of black, dots that were sweeping outward from and between those sun-circles, ships that were rising from the worlds around them! Out between the cluster's glowing circles they moved, toward us, in thousands, in tens of thousands, until all hung just outside it, a huge swarm of dots as large or larger than our own, a full hundred thousand mighty ships! There in space outside the cluster that vast fleet hung, and then was moving out toward us, a tremendous swarm of dots that was creeping down across the space-chart toward our own up-moving swarm, a mighty armada that was rushing out through the void toward our own inrushing armada! And as I gazed up at the great chart, stunned, there came from beside me the Spican's cry again.

"_It's the serpent-creatures' fleet! They've seen us coming--know we mean to attack the cluster and destroy the cone--and they've massed all their ships and are coming out to meet us!_"

_15. An Armageddon of Universes_

As Jhul Din's cry rang out I stood for an instant quite still, my eyes fixed on the chart upon which that great, outrushing swarm was drawing nearer to our own each moment. It was the vast fleet we had seen building in the dying universe, I knew, that had carried all their hordes across the void to our galaxy, to the Cancer cluster, and that they were flinging out now to meet and halt us here in outer space while in that cluster they labored to complete their giant cone of death. Before ever we could attack the cluster, now, we must come to death-grips with the titanic fleet rushing out toward us, a fleet that in size and power was at least as great as our own, and for that instant hope sank within me. Then, as the two fleets rushed ever closer, my doubts dissolved into a fierce determination.

"They've come out for battle," I cried, "and battle we'll give them! A battle this time to the end!"

At the same moment I turned swiftly toward the bank of keys before me. On the space-chart I saw that the serpent-fleet was driving toward us in a long, rectangular formation, our own fleet racing in its pyramid-formation to meet it. Both tremendous armadas were moving at their utmost speeds, toward each other, but as I pressed a key that slackened the speed of our own fleet I saw the other slowing also. Then, in swift succession, I touched other keys, and out from the great mass of our fleet behind me sprang two thousand of our swiftest ships, driving out from our fleet in a great fringe, ahead of us and to each side and above and below; and in a few moments more there leapt from the approaching serpent-armada a similar line of scouts.