The Cosmic Cloud

We three stared at the Chief across the metal desk for a moment before I broke the silence.
But it's incredible! I exclaimed. You must be mistaken, sir-nothing in the galaxy could cause a thing like that!
Jhul Din and Korus Kan nodded in agreement beside me, but the Chief of the Interstellar Patrol shook his head.
Yet something in the galaxy is causing it, Dur Nal, he said. I tell you that this thing has taken thousands of interstellar ships in the last few days without giving us any clue to its cause!
Slowly I shook my head. I don't doubt what you say, sir, I told him, but it seems impossible.
The four of us were sitting in a small metal-walled room through whose window came the red light of mighty Betelgeuse, the sun upon one of whose planets we were. The room was part of the Betelgeuse headquarters of the Interstellar Patrol, and to it but hours before from the great central headquarters at Canopus had come Lacq Larus, Chief of the Patrol. His first act had been to summon our cruiser, which had been patrolling off Betelgeuse, and he sat considering us now, a great plant-man of Capella whose strange green fibrous body was tense and whose green-pupiled eyes were unmoving as he faced us.
Jhul Din and Korus Kan and I sat across the desk from him. Jhul Din was of Spica, a big powerful crustacean-man, his strong body armored in black shell, his quick eyes protruding. Korus Kan, of Antares, was typical of that star's races, his upright man-like body being of metal, with lens-like eyes, a tireless body-machine in which his living brain was cased. I, Earth-man, completed the trio, and though the members of the Interstellar Patrol are from every peopled sun no stranger three in appearance could have been found in it.
Lacq Larus had been looking thoughtfully out of the window across the teeming world of Betelgeusans outside, but turned and again faced us. I will explain to you the whole situation, he said, for it's imperative that you three understand it.