Again Brett waved us aside. "Not now, please! Oh, yes--I can tell you
the structure of this, our little fragment of the material universe!
But let me finish first about our voyage.
"With our Time-change corrected, the myrdoscope readily had picked up
the image of the girl. A larger image, for we were 12,000 light-years
closer to her. The same scene, stricken again of motion. The giant
standing there; the gnome climbing upon the girl's ankle; and herself,
just aware of her danger, with dawning terror on her face.
"The electro-telescope also was working now. Looking behind us, we
could just see the last of the stars. And soon they were gone. A day of
our conscious existence went by. At 3,000 light-years an hour we added
72,000 light-years of distance--a total from earth of about 84,000. The
black abyss of Space had not remained empty. Off to one side had been
a faint glow. A nebula; a patch of star-dust. Through the telescope we
could see stars--a complete starry universe. It was as large, no doubt,
as that we had passed through.
"It gave us a new idea of the immensity of Space. Separated by some
30,000 light-years from our own universe of stars--of which the Solar
System is so tiny a part--this other star-patch was equally as large.
And yet it seemed to lie isolated in fathomless Space. It drifted by
us and in a few hours was gone. And far off to the other side of us,
another patch came past. And others; each several thousand light-years
in extent; each isolated from all its fellows.
"We traveled another full day. Over 150,000 light-years from earth. Yet
the girl's image was seemingly not coming nearer very rapidly. We felt
the voyage would take too long, so again we increased our size."