silence of another corridor, and progressed down this until our guards
turned us through a doorway in its right wall. We found ourselves in
a great hall, or room, smaller by far than any of the vast caverns
that honeycombed this world, but unlike them quite silent, and with no
humming machines or busy attendants. The great, long hall, perhaps five
hundred feet in length, was quite empty except for a low dais at its
farther end, toward which our guards conducted us, gliding before and
behind us.
As we neared it we saw that on each side of the dais was ranged a
double file of guards, each armed with the deadly weapon we had seen
demonstrated, while upon the dais itself rested ten of the formless
nebula-creatures. Of these ten, nine were like all of the others that
we had seen, ranged in a single line across the dais. The tenth,
however, who rested in a central position in front of the nine, was
like the others in form or formlessness alone, being at least five
times larger in size than any of the others we had seen, an enormous
mass of white flesh resting there on the dais and contemplating us
with his strange eye as we were marched down the hall toward him. I
divined instantly, by his strange size and prominent position, that he
held some place of power above the others of his race. For weird and
alien as his appearance was, there yet reached out from him toward us
a strong impression of some strange majesty and power embodied in this
monstrous mass of flesh, some awe-inspiring dignity that was truly
regal, and that transcended all differences of mind or shape.
In a moment we had been halted before the dais, and then one of our
guards glided forward, the mass of flesh that was his body twisting and
changing with lightning-like swiftness in the strange communication of
these creatures. I had no doubt that he was explaining our capture,
and when he glided back the great creature on the dais contemplated us
for a time in motionless silence. Then his own body writhed suddenly
in protean change, in silent speech, and instantly one of the nine
creatures behind him glided from the dais and through a small door in
the wall behind it, reappearing in a moment with a complicated little
apparatus in his grasp.
This was a small black box from which slender cords led to two shining
little plates of metal. One of the plates he placed upon the body of
the great nebula king, directly beneath the strange eye, where it
seemed to adhere instantly. Then, after pausing a moment, he glided
toward Jor Dahat with the other plate. The plant-man shrank back at his
approach, but as the guards around us raised their weapons he subsided,
allowing the creature to place the plate upon his own body beneath the
head, where it also adhered. This done, the creature moved back to the
little box and touched a series of switches upon it.
Instantly a slight whining sound rose from the box while a little globe
on its surface flashed into blinding blue light. The great nebula ruler
on the dais did not move, nor did Jor Dahat, though I saw his face
grow blank, perplexed. For minutes the little mechanism hummed, and
then, at a swift writhing order from the monster on the dais the thing
was switched off. A moment the nebula king seemed to pause, then gave
another silent order, and this time the creature at the box snapped on
another series of switches, the globe upon it flashing into yellow
light this time.
As it did so I saw Jor Dahat's eyes widening and starting, his whole
body reacting as from an electric shock. His whole attitude, as the
little apparatus hummed on, was that of one who listens to incredible
things, his face a sudden mask of horror. Then suddenly he uttered a
strangled cry, tore the metal plate from his body, and before any could
guess his intention or prevent him had hurled himself with a mad shout
straight at the nebula king!
4
The moment that followed lives in my memory as one of lightning action.
The very unexpectedness of Jor Dahat's mad attack was all that saved
him, for before the massed guards about us could turn their deadly
weapons on the plant-man he was upon the dais and the great creature
there, whirling across the platform with him in wild conflict.
Instantly Sar Than and I had leaped up to his side, glimpsing in that
moment a half-dozen great pseudopod arms form suddenly out of the
monster with whom the plant-man battled, wrapping themselves around him
with swift force. Then, before we two could reach his side, we had been
gripped ourselves by the guards on either side of us.
[Illustration: "They whirled across the platform in wild conflict."]
A moment we struggled madly in the remorseless grip of those powerful
arms, then desisted as we saw others of the guards grasp Jor Dahat
and pull him down from the dais beside us, wrenching him loose from
his hold on his opponent. Then we three faced our captors once more,
panting and disheveled, while from the dais the great nebula ruler
again surveyed us. I looked for instant death as a result of that wild
attack upon him, but whether the creature intended to reserve his
revenge for later, or whether there was in that cool and alien mind
nothing so human as a desire for revenge, he did not order our deaths
at that moment. His body spun again in silent speech, and as it ceased
a half-dozen of the guards surrounded us and marched us back down the
great hall and into the dim-lit corridor outside.
Instead of conducting us back down that corridor toward the giant
cavern through which we had come, though, they led us in the opposite
direction. A thousand feet or more we were marched, and then the
corridor widened, while on either side of us now we made out holes in
its floor, round shafts like that down which we had come from above.
In the sides of these shafts, though, were no peg ladders, and we saw
that the depth of each was only some twenty-five to thirty feet. While
we wondered at their purpose our guards suddenly halted us before one
of them, and then, taking a flexible little metal ladder from a recess
in the wall, lowered it into the metal wall and motioned us to descend.
Slowly we clambered down, and when the three of us had reached the
well's bottom the ladder was at once drawn up. Then came the rustling
sound of the guards above, gliding back down the corridor, except for a
single one apparently left to guard us, who moved ceaselessly back and
forth above.
Silently we gazed at each other, then about our strange prison cell.
Even in the dim half-light of the corridor we could see that it was
quite unescapable, its smooth perpendicular walls without projection of
any kind. Even the nebula-creatures themselves, for whom these strange
cells must have been designed, could not have escaped them, so there
was small enough chance of our doing so. Without speaking we slumped to
the floor of our well-prison, and for a time there was a dull silence
there, broken only by the rustling glide of the single guard above.
At last the stillness was broken by the voice of Jor Dahat, who had
been gazing moodily toward the wall. "Prisoners, here," he said slowly.
"The one place of all places from which there is no escape."
I shook my head. "It seems the end," I admitted, dully. "We can't
escape from this place, and if we could there's no time left to do
anything, now."
The plant-man nodded, glancing at the time-dial on his wrist. "But
twelve hours more," he said, "before the end--before the break-up of
the nebula, the cosmic cataclysm that will wreck our universe. And
these things who are our captors, these shapeless nebula-creatures,
responsible for that break-up, that cataclysm----"
We stared at him in amazement, and he was silent for a moment, then
speaking slowly on. "I know," he said darkly. "There in the hall of the
nebula king I learned--what we came to learn. You saw them put those
plates upon him and me, saw that apparatus? Well, it is in reality a
thought-transmission apparatus, one which can transfer those vibrations
of the brain which we call thought, those mind-pictures, from one mind
to another. When it was first turned on I felt my senses leaving me,
my brain a blank. I stood there, my knowledge, my memories, my ideas,
being pumped out of me like water from a well, into the brain of that
monstrous ruler there. He must have learned, in those few moments, all
of my own knowledge of the universe outside the nebula, all of our own
plans in coming to this place. And then, at his order, the machine was
reversed, and thoughts, pictures, flowed through it from his brain to
mine.
"It must have been from a sheer desire to overawe and terrify me that
the creature sent his thoughts into my brain. I know that the moment
it was turned on I became conscious of ideas, thoughts, pictures,
rushing into my mind, of new knowledge springing whole into my brain.
Much there was that was blank and dark, ideas, no doubt, for which my
own intelligence had no equivalent; but enough came to me so that I
realized at last who and what these creatures were, and what their part
was in whirling the nebula on to its break-up, and our doom.
"I knew, with never a doubt, that this great open space at the nebula's
heart had been formed because the denser portions of its interior had
contracted faster than the outer portions. As you know, all nebulæ
contract with the passage of time, their fiery gases condensing to
form great blazing stars, the eon-old cycle of stellar evolution, from
fiery nebula to flaming sun. In this cycle this great nebula followed,
but because of its vast size the inner, denser portions had contracted
with much greater speed than the outer parts, forming a great solid
world, in time, while the outer parts were still but fiery gas. This
solid world spun at the center of the great space formerly occupied by
the gases that had contracted to form it, and it was warmed and lit
eternally by the encircling fires of the nebula all around it, and shut
off from the outside universe by those fires.
"Light and warmth had this world in plenty, therefore, and with time
life had risen on it, crude forms asecnding through the channels of
evolutionary change into a myriad different species, of which one
species, the nebula-creatures we have seen, was the most intelligent.
In time they ruled this strange world, wiping out all other species,
and climbed to greater and greater science and power with the passage
of time, their existence never suspected by any in the universe
outside. Back and forth through the Galaxy went the great star-cruisers
of the federated suns, but none ever dreamed of the strange race that
had grown to power on this world at the fiery nebula's heart.
"But slowly, inexorably, destruction began to creep upon that race. As
I have said, all nebulæ contract always, and this one was still doing
so, still growing smaller and smaller, its encircling fires closing
steadily in upon the spinning world at their heart. Hotter and hotter
it became on that world until life was hardly possible on it for the
nebula-creatures, accustomed as they were to a milder temperature. They
must escape that heat or perish, and since they could not escape to
outer space through the prisoning fires around them they did the last
thing available, hollowed out vast caverns in the interior of their
world and descended into those caverns to live. The whole surface of
their world they sheathed with smooth, heat-reflecting metal, and then
descended in all their hordes into the countless mighty caverns that
honeycombed all their great world, taking up their life again in those
cool depths, safe from the nebula's heat.
"Ages passed over them while they lived thus in their world's depths,
but still the nebula contracted, closed in upon them, in that vast,
remorseless cycle that is nature's law throughout the universe. Closer
and closer crept its fires toward the metal-sheathed world of the
nebula people, until at last they saw that soon those fires would
envelop their world and annihilate it, unless they were turned back in
some way. So for a time they bent all their energies toward the problem
of turning back the nebula's contracting fires, and at last found a way
to do so, one which would take all their strength and science to carry
out.
"In the surface of their metal-covered world they sank a vast,
metal-walled pit, and in that pit set massed machines capable of
generating an atomic ray of terrific power. From each of the
generating-machines led a connection carrying the power produced by it,
all these connections combining into the thick cable we saw which leads
into the great cylinder-apparatus, generating inside it the mighty ray
that stabs up toward the nebula, and into which we crashed. Now the
great world here at the nebula's heart is already spinning, revolving,
and the purpose of the nebula people was to use the great ray as a
connection between their spinning world and the encircling nebula, to
set the nebula to spinning also by this means, the ray being equal to
a solid connection between the two. And their plan proved a sound one,
for after the great ray had been put into operation the vast encircling
nebula began to move slowly, to revolve, faster and faster as its
turning accelerated under the constant impetus of the great ray.
"When the nebula should reach a certain speed of whirl, the
nebula-creatures knew, when it should reach the critical point of its
spin, it would be whirling so fast that it would not longer be able to
hold its mighty mass together, and it would break up, disintegrate,
its fiery mass flying off through the Galaxy in all directions. This
would remove all danger from the nebula people, who could then live on
without fear in their cavern-honeycombed world, using artificial light
and heat. They knew, however, that once started the whirling of the
nebula must be kept up until it had reached its critical point and had
broken up, since if the whirling were slackened before then, the great
ray turned off, the vast, ponderously turning nebula would collapse
with the removal of the ray, its collapsing fires annihilating the
nebula world inside it. For this reason the great machines in the pit
that generated the power for the ray were made completely automatic and
certain in operation, needing only a handful of the nebula-creatures
to attend them.
"It was that handful that captured us when we came, our ship falling
down to the great pit's floor after crashing into the terrific ray.
And after we had been brought down here, after I had learned thus what
terrible plan of these creatures it was that was bringing doom to our
own universe, I lost my senses, sprang at the nebula king, unconscious
of all but what I had just learned. And now you know what it was I
learned, what we came here to learn. But we have learned too late, now,
for in less than twenty hours the nebula's whirling will have reached
its critical point, will have sent its vast flaming mass hurtling
out across our universe, our Galaxy, in all directions, to carry
destruction and death to all the peoples of our suns and worlds!"
* * * * *
The silence of our shaft-cell was suddenly heavy and brooding as the
voice of Jor Dahat ceased. From above came the soft rustling of the
guard there, gliding back and forth along the dim corridor, and faintly
to our ears from the distant vast caverns came the clash and hum of the
great machines there, with all their clamor of activity. At last, as
though from a distance, I heard my own voice break the silence.
"Twelve hours," I said slowly. "Twelve hours--before the end." Then I,
too, fell silent, and silently, hopelessly, we stared into each other's
eyes.
Through the hours that followed, the same deathly silence hung over
us, a silence intensified by the thing in all our thoughts, a silence
deafening as the rumble of doom. Always now that scene comes back to
me in memory as a strange, dim-lit picture--the dusky little well at
the bottom of which we crouched, hardly able to make out each others'
faces, the ceaseless humming activity from the great caverns beyond,
the measured glide of our guard above. Hour passed into hour and we
moved not, changed not, sitting on in dull, despairing silence. At
last, weary as I was, I drifted off into restless sleep, tortured by
vague dreams of the horrors through which we had come.
When I opened my eyes again it was to find Jor Dahat gently shaking me,
crouched there beside me. As he saw me wake he bent his head to my ear.
"Sar Than has a plan," he whispered to me. "We've hardly more than an
hour left but he thinks that we have a chance that way to get out--a
million to one chance. If we could----"
But by that time I was crawling over to the Arcturian's side, and
eagerly we listened while in whispers he outlined his project for
escaping from our pit-cell. Small enough chance there seemed that we
could carry it out, and even were we to escape from our well-prison
there seemed nothing but death awaiting us farther on, but we were of
one mind that it would be better to meet our end thus than wait in
the shaft tamely for death. Therefore, crouching against the wall, we
waited tensely for the guard above to pass our shaft.
Pass he did, in a moment more, his monstrous shapeless body gliding to
the shaft's edge and peering down there at us in passing, as usual.
Then he was gone, gliding on down the corridor, and instantly we sprang
to our feet. At once Jor Dahat stepped over to the wall, standing with
his back against it and his feet braced widely on the floor. Then Sar
Than climbed nimbly up over the plant-man's body until two of his four
limbs rested on the shoulders of Jor Dahat, who now grasped those two
limbs in his own hands and raised them as high as he could reach,
holding the Arcturian above him by the sheer force of his powerful
muscles.
With his other two limbs Sar Than also was reaching upward and now
I clambered up in turn, over the plant-man and the Arcturian, until
the latter, grasping my own feet, had raised me in turn as high as he
could reach. Thus upheld I was just able to reach the shaft's rim above
with my upstretched hands, and there, in that precarious position, we
awaited the return of the guard.
It could hardly have been more than a minute, at most, that we waited,
but to ourselves, balancing there with muscles strained to the utmost,
it seemed an eternity. I heard the rustling glide of the guard's
approach, now, but at the same time felt the Arcturian's hold giving,
beneath me, heard the great muscles of the plant-man cracking beneath
the weight of both of us. I knew that my two companions could hold out
for but a moment longer, and then, just as the Arcturian's grip on my
feet began to slip, the returning guard had reached the pit's edge,
pausing there, directly above me, to peer down as usual. The next
moment I had reached up with a last effort and had gripped him, and
then we four were tumbling down into the well, pulling the guard down
with us.
As we fell I had heard his weapon rattle on the floor above, knocked
from his grasp, but as we reached the well's floor he had already
gripped us with a half-dozen pseudopod arms that formed themselves
lightning-like out of the shapeless mass of flesh that was his body.
Then we were plunging about the floor of the well in a mad, weird
battle, as silent as it was deadly.
The thing could not cry out for help, but for the moment it seemed to
us that alone it might conquer us, its suddenly formed arms coiling
swiftly about us, great tentacles of muscle that were like to have
choked us in the first moment of combat. Strike and grasp as we would
there seemed no vulnerable spot on the creature's slippery body, and
weary as we were the outcome of the struggle was for a time extremely
doubtful. I heard Sar Than utter a strangled cry as a thick arm noosed
itself about his body, felt another striving for a hold on my own
head, and then saw Jor Dahat suddenly grasp two of the slippery arms
and literally tear the thing's shapeless body into half with those two
holds. There was a soft ripping sound and then the creature had slumped
to the floor, a limp mass of dead flesh.
A moment we stared breathlessly at each other over the dead thing, then
without speaking sprang to the wall, where Jor Dahat braced himself to
repeat our former procedure. In a moment he had raised the Arcturian
above him, and within another moment Sar Than was raising me likewise
until I had again gained a grip on the rim of the shaft above. A
fierce struggling effort and I had pulled myself up to the floor of
the dim-lit corridor, where I lay panting for a moment, then leapt to
my feet and over to the recess in the wall from which I had seen the
flexible ladder taken. A moment I pawed frantically in the recess, then
uttered a sob as my fingers encountered the cold metal of the ladder.
It was but the work of an instant to lower it into the well for my two
companions to climb up, and then we gazed tensely about us.
The long, dim-lit corridor was quite empty for the moment, though away
down its length we glimpsed the square of white light that marked the
point where it debouched into the great caverns. That was our path, we
knew; so down the corridor we ran, between the rows of shaft-cells on
either side, until we were just passing between the last two of those
shafts and were reaching the point where the corridor narrowed once
more. And then we suddenly stopped short, stood motionless; for, not a
hundred yards ahead, a double file of the nebula guards had suddenly
issued from a door in the corridor's wall, and were gliding straight
down its length toward us!
5
For a single moment death stared us in the face, and we stood there
motionless, stupefied with terror. As yet the guards approaching us
seemed not to have glimpsed us, owing to the corridor's dim light, but
with every moment they were drawing nearer and it was but a matter
of seconds before we would be seen and slain. Then, before we had
recovered from our stupefaction, Sar Than had jerked us sidewise toward
one of the last shaft-cells in the floor that we had just passed.
"Down here!" he cried, pointing into its dark depths. "Down here until
they pass!"
In a flash we saw that his idea was indeed our last chance, and at once
lowered ourselves over the dark shaft's rim, hanging from its edge with
hands gripped on that edge.
We had not been too soon; for a few seconds later there came the
rustling sound of the guards passing above, gliding down the corridor
past our place of concealment. As they glided by we hung in an agony of
suspense, hoping against hope that they would not glimpse our hands on
the pit's rim, or notice the absence of the creature left to guard us.
There was a long, tense minute of waiting, and then they were past. We
hung for a few moments longer, with aching muscles, then drew ourselves
up to the corridor's floor once more and started down its length toward
the square of white brilliance in the distance.
Down the dim-lit corridor we ran, past open doors in its walls through
which we glimpsed great halls and branching passageways, all seeming
for the moment deserted. A few moments later we had reached the
corridor's end, and were peering out into the gigantic, white-lit space
that lay beyond, a space alive and clamorous with the same multifarious
activity as when we had come through it. To venture out into that
great place of humming machines and thronging nebula-creatures was to
court instant death, we knew, yet it must be crossed to gain the single
shaft that led upward. Then, while we still hesitated, I uttered a
whispered exclamation and pointed to something in the shadows beside
us, something big and round that lay just inside the broad corridor's
dusk, and that gleamed faintly in the dim light. In a moment we were
beside it, and found it to be one of the great turtle-machines that
swarmed across the floors of the vast caverns beyond us, though this
one was unoccupied, its round door open to expose the hollow interior
of the dome.
"There's our way out!" I cried. "There's room in it for the three of
us!"
Within another moment we were inside it, crouching together in the
cramped space of the interior and swinging shut the little door. I
found that a narrow slit running around the dome allowed us to look
forth, and that a little circle of switches grouped around a single
large lever were evidently its controls. Swiftly I pressed these
switches in a series of combinations, and then there came a welcome hum
of power from beneath and we were gliding smoothly out of the shadowy
corridor into the full glare of the thronging, white-lit cavern, my
hand on the central lever guiding our progress.