broader streets some distance from the clearing, since we could see
now that on all the world below there moved only an occasional dark
liquid-creature, the throngs we had seen before having unaccountably
disappeared. Here and there above it moved a cube-ship, but none of
these glimpsed us through the dusk, and in a moment more our cruisers
had landed gently upon one of the smooth streets. There Jurt Tul and
I swiftly stepped forth, for we had decided that we two alone could
explore the comet-city more silently than a larger party. At once the
cruisers swept back to wait for us in the dusk above, ready to make
an attempt at escape from the comet should we be discovered. Then the
amphibian and I moved swiftly along that silent street toward the great
central plaza.
On each side of us loomed great massed machines at which we merely
glanced as we hurried on. As we passed one of the pits that had puzzled
me, though, I stepped to its edge, gazed down, then shrank back in
horror! For in that shallow, smooth-walled pit there lay what seemed
a great pool of thick black liquid unguessably deep, a pool formed
by the liquid bodies of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of the liquid
comet-creatures that had poured into it! I could glimpse the white eyes
floating in it, here and there, but there was no other sign of life
or movement in the mass, and as I saw that and thought of the rows
upon rows of other similar pits that extended across the comet-city, I
understood, and turned swiftly to Jurt Tul.
"Sleeping!" I exclaimed. "In their night, their rest-period, they must
all pour into these pits together--mingling their liquid bodies!"
Swiftly we shrank back from the great pit, moved on toward the
clearing. Massed machines, grim and gleaming and towering, loomed
all about us, half seen in the crimson dusk, and we passed scores of
the great, liquid-filled pits in which slept the comet-creatures,
but there was no sign of our two friends. Had they been destroyed?
Dread filled me, dread intensified because I realized that soon the
comet-creatures would be ending their night, and turning on their white
light of day, discovering us there on their world. Then, abruptly, Jurt
Tul jerked me back from my forward stride, crouching silently with me
upon the street, behind a mass of great mechanisms. For out of the
darkness to our right had come the sound of something moving, something
approaching us! Silently, tensely, we crouched there, and saw a dark
shape moving stealthily down one of the branching streets toward us. It
had turned from us, toward the great clearing ahead, when unexpectedly,
as we crouched, my arm had brushed against the great machine beside
us and touched something that moved beneath the touch, with a loud
metallic clicking. Instantly that dark shape ahead had turned, and then
was leaping straight toward us!
Before we could rise to meet it the rush of it had borne us downward,
and as it did so I realized with a wild thrill that it was _not_
a liquid-creature but a great and warm and fur-covered being,
many-limbed, that had attacked us! Even as that fact penetrated into my
brain our struggle had abruptly ceased, and we were staggering erect,
Jurt Tul and I grasping the other.
"Gor Han!" I exclaimed. "It's you!"
The great Betelgeusan's fur-covered body and strange features were
clearly visible to us now as he grasped our own hands, his eyes wide.
"Khel Ken! Jurt Tul!" he whispered. "I thought you destroyed in the
battle!"
"We hid--escaped," I explained to him swiftly. "But you, Gor Han--how
have you escaped?--and where's Najus Nar?"
He was silent a moment, then suddenly dragged us down into the deeper
shadow of the great machines beside us. There, with the lurid light of
the coma on his strange features, he spoke swiftly.
"Najus Nar is--living," he said, "but I will tell you what came upon
us. You saw our ships fall in the battle over the city here, crashing
down into it. At once these liquid comet-creatures were upon us,
most of our crews having been killed in the crash, and but a few
were left; but these being injured, too, they annihilated them with
crimson bolts before we realized it, leaving but Najus Nar and myself,
whom they wished, apparently, to question. Us they secured by metal
bonds to one of the great machines, then came to us with little metal
models, made of what seemed plastic gleaming metal, which could change
instantaneously through a myriad different forms at their operation,
and which they used for a rough communication with us. And through
these and the things they explained to us, we learned, Najus Nar and I,
something of the purpose and the past of these comet-creatures.
"Eons they had dwelt upon the central worlds of this giant comet that
roamed the outer void, shaping those worlds to their will as it flashed
on. They had used the coma's electrical energy for their own weapons,
and had used it to produce light-vibrations, a white light which they
turned on and off for their day and night. The coma's energy, indeed,
was the source of all their world's activities, but as their giant
comet plunged on through space, that energy, ever shot backward in the
tail that drove the comet on, was dissipated faster and faster, the
coma waning and dying as all comets wane and die in time. But one thing
could save them: to absorb into the coma vast quantities of matter,
which would be converted instantly into electrical energy to replenish
the coma. Not far from the great comet at that time loomed a vast
universe of suns, and if the comet were to crash through the universe
its suns and worlds would replenish their waning coma and save their
comet from death. They needed but to change the comet's course, to send
it toward the universe instead of passing it, and to do this they set
up a great comet-control.
"This comet-control was set on the top of a truncated pyramid in a
clearing at the central world's center. It was a great horizontal
disk, set parallel to their disk-world, with a pointer that could be
moved at will around the disk-dial. The position of the pointer, by
means of great projectors to which it was connected, controlled the
position of the comet's tail. If the pointer was at the dial's rear
the tail would be shot forth from the great coma's rear also, driving
it forward through space. If they turned the pointer to the left the
tail would shoot from the coma's left, driving the comet to the right.
They could thus, by means of the comet-control and the great projectors
which controlled the tail's position, drive the comet in any direction
at will. The only thing they could not do with it was to reverse the
comet-control, to shoot out a new tail opposite to the old one, since
the momentum of the old one and the opposite momentum or pressure of
the new one would crush and annihilate the coma and its worlds between
their great pressures. They could drive the comet to right or left at
will, though, which was all that they needed, since now they drove it
toward the universe of suns near them.
"Onward the giant comet drove to that universe, and soon crashed
through it, its suns and worlds being sucked into the gigantic coma and
annihilated there, converted instantly into electrical energy which
restored the waning coma's glory. So onward through space with renewed
power it flashed, through the great void between the galaxies, until
ages later when its coma was again waning they drove it toward another
universe, crashed through it likewise. And so through the eons, as ever
the comet's glory, the coma's power, has waned, they have driven it
through another universe, destroying that universe to restore it. On
through the limitless void of outer space they have driven it, a cosmic
vampire looting the life of universes to restore its own! And now, when
the comet's glory has again waned, they have turned it toward our own
galaxy, to destroy it as they have done countless others. And within
less than a scant half-dozen hours now the comet will have thundered so
close to our galaxy that no power in existence can turn it aside!
"All this we heard from the comet-creatures' communication with us,
and then they proposed that we cast in our lot with them, forgetting
our doomed universe, and help them build great cruisers and force-beam
apparatus like those with which we had fought them. I refused, of
course, not wishing to live under any conditions after our galaxy's
death, but to my horror Najus Nar accepted the proposal! He joined
them, not listening to my frantic words, and went away with them,
leaving me in despair. Then when the gong sounded across their worlds
that marked the end of the white light and the beginning of this night,
I began to work frantically with the metal bonds that held me to the
great machine, twisting and untwisting them until at last, but minutes
ago, I managed to break them. They had counted on the bonds holding
me, and had left no guard over me, so at once I started off toward
the central clearing, toward the great comet-control, for a desperate
last attempt at turning the comet aside with it. I heard you crouching
there, thought you comet-creatures and sprang at you, and the rest you
know."
* * * * *
When Gor Han's deep whisper had ceased we were silent a moment, and
surely never did stranger trio crouch in stranger place than we three,
earth-man and amphibian Aldebaranian and great fur-clad Betelgeusan,
there in the crimson dusk of the comet-city, all about us the pits that
held its countless liquid-creatures and above us the glowing red coma
which encompassed this world and was driving on toward our galaxy's
doom. At last I broke the silence.
"Najus Nar with the comet-creatures!" I whispered. "It's impossible! In
all its record there have been no traitors in the Interstellar Patrol!"
Gor Han looked steadily, compassionately, at me. "It is so, Khel Ken,"
he said. "I would not believe it had I not seen it myself."
"Najus Nar!" I repeated, again, then gathered myself. "There's but
one thing to do," I said swiftly, "and that's for us three to make
the attempt you planned, Gor Han, to get to the comet-control in the
clearing and turn it, then destroy it before they can turn it back!"
We rose, paused. "There are comet-guards at the pyramid's base and
summit, I know," said Gor Han, "but if we can overcome them before this
night-period ends we'll succeed!"
Swiftly we moved forward, now, down the street through the dusk toward
the great clearing. Mighty machines looming in the red dusk on each
side of us, dark pits yawning between them in which the comet-hordes
lay silent, glowing crimson coma that swung above--these made an
inconceivably weird scene about us through which we three, a weird and
dissimilar enough trio in that lurid dusk, moved rapidly on. Once we
saw a few of the liquid-creatures flowing across one of the streets
ahead, shrank back until they had disappeared, then moved swiftly on.
One or two cube-ships slid by above, too, but these did not spy us, and
in a few minutes more we had emerged from the mass of machines and pits
into the great flat-floored circular plaza at the city's center, the
truncated pyramid rising vaguely from it in the crimson dusk.
"The guards!" whispered Gor Han. "There at the pyramid's base!"
I gazed, saw that a great notched stair or flight of narrow steps
ran up the pyramid's side, and that at its foot were some four dark
liquid-shapes, lying motionless, but with weapons of some sort,
bolt-containers I did not doubt, held in the grasp of their viscous
fluid bodies. A moment we hesitated, then crept out across the clearing
toward them. They seemed not aware of our approach, and still nearer we
crept stealthily, approaching them from a side, until just when we were
within yards, within feet of them, one seemed to flow swiftly toward us
for an instant, then back, at the same time training his deadly weapon
upon us! Before he could loose the crashing bolts from it, though, we
had sprung upon them!
The combat that followed at the pyramid's base was the most horrible,
I think, that ever I engaged in. I had grasped at the body of one of
the things but instantly felt the viscous liquid body withdraw from
my grasp, flow away from me, while I struggled in vain for some hold
upon it. Then I glimpsed Gor Han with his four great arms gripping
one of the viscous things and hurling it against the pyramid's side
before it could evade his grasp, shattering it into liquid black
splashes there. The thing I struggled with had gripped me in turn,
now, and was like fluid steel in the strength with which it held me.
I felt a powerful viscous arm tightening about my neck, while others
pinioned my arms, felt that grasp tightening, strangling me, and then
it was abruptly torn from me as Gor Han lifted and flung it likewise!
I rose, staggering, to see that of the four comet-creatures only black
splashes here and there about us remained, Gor Han and Jurt Tul having
annihilated them with their mighty limbs.
[Illustration: "The combat that followed was the most horrible I had
ever engaged in."]
"Up to the pyramid's summit!" I choked, stumbling toward the stair's
base. "We've a chance to win yet!"
The others were rushing toward the stair with me, and then suddenly,
as we set foot upon it, we stopped short. For in the air about us,
sounding out across all the central world and the worlds about it, had
clanged the note of a mighty gong! I heard Gor Han and Jurt Tul cry out
at that sound, but in the next instant brilliant white light had sprung
into being about us, the light of the comet-creatures' day, suddenly
turned on, bathing all things in their world in its revealing glare!
And as we staggered there almost blinded by that brilliance, from the
streets about us comet-creatures were flowing into the great clearing,
liquid black comet-creatures in countless hordes from the pits of the
mighty city. Even as they poured into the clearing they saw us, those
on the pyramid's summit had also glimpsed us, and then from above and
from all about the comet-creatures in countless thousands were rushing
upon us!
4
There was a wild cry from Gor Han. "They've come out--it's the end of
their night! And the end for us!"
The end for us! It seemed so in that instant, the great hordes of
comet-creatures flowing in toward us from all the clearing's sides,
from the pyramid's summit down toward us, the suddenly aroused
cube-ships darting across the city toward us from far away. Then, even
in that split-second of terror, I saw rushing toward us among those
liquid-hordes a figure at sight of which I forgot even the doom that
was upon us, an erect, many-limbed, familiar insect-figure as tall
almost as myself, at sight of which I uttered a great cry.
"Najus Nar!" My great shout reached him even across the wild confusion
and din of that moment, and I saw him gaze full toward us, his
strange face expressionless, then rush on toward us without sign of
recognition, one with the hordes of comet-creatures about him! I heard
a gasp of unbelief as Jurt Tul beside me saw also, heard the crazy
yell of great Gor Han as with eyes crimson he stepped forward to throw
himself against those onrushing comet-creatures, then was conscious
that great dark shapes had swooped down from behind us, hovering
momentarily beside us. They were our five cruisers!
Their space-doors were already wide, and in the next instant, just
before the comet-creatures were upon us, we had tumbled inside, were
rocketing upward above the city pursued by scores of brilliant crimson
bolts, two of which found their marks and sent two of our ships into
flaring death. The cruiser into which we three had rushed, though, and
the other two remaining ones, were racing up now above the white-lit
central world, with the countless cubes rising swiftly after us,
forming in a great crescent-formation behind us as they flashed after
us across the ringed worlds toward the coma's wall!
"They're going to drive us straight into the coma itself!" cried Gor
Han above the din of our generators as we flung madly on.
I saw in the same moment that it was so, that the great crescent
of thousands of cube-ships that had risen to destroy us were not
overhauling us, behind, but were driving us onward without chance of
escape sidewise or downward, this time. The glowing wall loomed before
us, and the single circular opening in that wall was guarded still by
hundreds of other cube-ships, hanging in a solid mass across it. We
could not escape through that opening, even had we desired escape, nor
could we evade the relentless pursuit behind us, and inevitably within
seconds more we would be driven into instant annihilation! Driven to
our own deaths by the cubes behind us! This I saw, and in that instant
of cold despair could have plunged on into that annihilating death, but
then wild anger surged up in me and I whirled to Gor Han and Jurt Tul
and the pilot beside them.
"Drive straight toward the opening!" I shouted. "Straight into the
cube-ships there! If this is the end we'll take some of them, at least,
with us!"
A fierce cry from the Betelgeusan, a reckless laugh from the amphibian,
answered me as our three ships shot forward in that moment like things
of light toward the cube-ships massed across the opening. Nearer we
flashed toward them, nearer toward the hundreds of crimson bolts
which in another moment would blast us, nearer--but look! look! Those
hundreds of waiting ships had turned suddenly from us, had turned about
and disregarding us were loosing their crimson bolts into the great
passage-opening through the coma behind them, were falling back toward
us from that opening, with red bolts blasting toward it! And then out
of that opening after them came the things at which they fired, mass
upon mass of long, shining shapes, of great, long _cruisers_, that
burst forth from the opening in hundreds, in thousands, loosing upon
the battling cubes a myriad of black shafts of the force-beams which
in a moment more had driven them down and back in shattered masses of
wreckage!
"Cruisers! Cruisers of the Interstellar Patrol!"
We were all shouting madly, then. Cruisers, the five thousand cruisers
that had been sent out after our own thousand and that now, at the
last, had found their way inside the comet in time to save us! They
were shooting toward our own, massing about us, and then as from our
bows flashed the signal that was mine as Chief of the Patrol, they were
massing swiftly behind us, battle formation again in long parallel
lines, with our own ship at their head!
"Back to the central world!" I cried, my eyes upon the time-dial set
before me. "We've minutes left yet to get to that comet-control!"
Cruisers massed together, we were leaping back, now, back toward
the spinning worlds, and toward the great crescent-formation of
cube-ships that faced us now. Before those thousands of cube-ships
had grasped what had happened, before they could turn, could change
their formation, our compact mass had driven into them. Then cruiser
thousands and cube-ship thousands were spinning and striking and
mingling together, smiting with black force-beams and crimson bolts
in titanic battle inside the tremendous electrical coma, whirling and
stabbing in awful combat, the comet-creatures for their comet and we
for our universe! Comet and galaxy had come to grips at last as those
two huge fleets caught and struck at each other!
Cubes and cruisers swirled and ran about us as our own cruiser
struggled through the wild ruck of the battle, our own black beams
stabbing to smash back cubes before and beside us, while through
the speech-instruments before me I cried orders to my mighty fleet,
directing the masses of cruisers that leapt and struck and soared at
the great square cubes about us. All space outside seemed a single
giant mass of struggling cubes and cruisers, cut across by blasting
crimson bolt and ebon beam, yet ever we were forcing the cube-ships
back, back over their ring of revolving disk-worlds, back over their
mighty central world, and then down toward it as they fought fiercely
against our black beams which drove great paths of destruction through
them!
The surface of that world was looming clearer beneath us, bathed in
white revealing light, as the giant battle swung lower down toward it.
I glimpsed the great circular clearing, the pyramid with the mechanism
and comet-guards on its summit, knew by the dial before me that but
minutes still remained to turn aside with it the colossal on-thundering
comet. Lower we swung toward the clearing, and as we did so the cubes
beneath stiffened against us, their uprushing hail of deadly red bolts
stabbing like an upward-falling rain of crimson death! But still more
deadly were the black beams that drove down through them from our
ships, and they were giving a little before us, sinking lower still,
when suddenly from the surface of the world below there rose up among
them another cube, one vastly greater than any of the others, one that
moved ponderously up to the center of the cube-ship fleet and then
glowed suddenly with a brilliant light. And as it did so the thousands
of cube-ships beneath us suddenly vanished! Disappeared from sight as
though they had never been, leaving below us only the spot of brilliant
light that marked the greater cube!
"That great cube!" Jurt Tul was crying. "It's a vibration-projector
of some kind, one whose vibrations make invisible all the cube-ships
around it and leave our ships and all else visible! And they're
attacking now!"
For even at that moment, as we stared dumfounded toward the place where
the cube-ship fleet had vanished, there had come from beneath and
beside us hundreds upon hundreds of crimson bolts, bolts that flashed
seemingly out of empty space annihilating scores, hundreds, of our
bewildered ships, bolts from the cube-ships which we could not see,
but which were circling about us now loosing their terrific shafts of
death upon us! A battle to the death between two mighty fleets, one
invisible, the other a plain target! Out in all directions our black
beams were wildly whirling, but we could loose them only by chance,
while our own ships, a perfect target to the invisible cubes about us,
were flaring in annihilation in ever-increasing numbers!
"That great projector-cube!" I shouted to Gor Han. "Our only chance is
to get to it--destroy it!"
I pointed down toward the spot of brilliant light beneath, which marked
the position of the great cube that was projecting the vibrations
that made our enemies invisible. But even as I did so a half hundred
cruisers of our fleet had massed together, shooting downward in a
great wedge, through a withering hail of crimson bolts, down through
invisible cubes through which they crashed, down until an instant later
the score remaining of them had crashed squarely into the spot of
brilliant light below, meeting annihilation with it in that collision.
But the light vanished as they crashed, leaving but wreckage of cube
and cruisers, and at the same moment the mass of cube-ships beneath us
had suddenly flashed into full view once more!
* * * * *
Our great fleet was gathering itself now for a last final rush downward
through those opposing cube-ships toward the comet-control. I could
hear the wild victorious shouts of Gor Han and Jurt Tul and the crew
beneath loud in my ears, could see the pyramid's summit, the great
control, close beneath, as I turned to the speech-instrument to shout
the word that would send our fleet thundering down. But before ever my
lips opened I had stiffened, stood motionless. For from the time-dial
before me had come the low, metallic note of the passing hour, marking
the end of the last moment in which the comet could have been turned
aside! Marking the end for our universe, sounding in my stunned ears
like a titanic knell of doom across the infinite for our galaxy!
Nothing now in all the universe could turn the giant comet aside from
that galaxy enough to save it! Motionless there, Gor Han and Jurt
Tul and I heard echoing away that muted note that had struck for the
galaxy's doom!
"Lost!" Gor Han was saying it, strangely, slowly, uncomprehendingly.
"We've lost!"