With the passing minutes our generators were throbbing faster and faster, and we were leaping on through the galaxy at a speed that equaled or exceeded that of our flight inward. Suns were flashing by us on either side now, at a rate that was an index to our appalling speed, but still we flashed on with greater and greater speed, racing out between the thronging suns of the galaxy toward its edge, the great ball of suns of the Cancer cluster expanding before us as we raced on in its direction. On—on—until the mighty cluster lay full to our right, until we were flashing past it, the blackness of outer space stretching ahead, and in that far-flung blackness the dim little patch of light that was the Andromeda universe. We were passing the mighty cluster, now, heading straight out into the black abyss, and my heart hammered with excitement as we flashed on. Could we pass the patrol of enemy ships around the galaxy's edge without a challenge, even? Could we—but suddenly there was a low exclamation from Korus Kan, and I turned to see, racing up beside us at our left, a close-massed squadron of five great oval ships!
They had glimpsed us on their space-charts, we knew, and now were flashing beside us through space at a speed the same as our own, drawing nearer toward us while from their white-lit pilot rooms their serpent-pilots inspected us. A moment I held my breath, as they flashed on at our side, peering toward us; then, apparently satisfied that our great oval craft was but one of their own fleet, they began to drop behind, to turn and resume their patrol. I breathed a great sigh, but the next moment caught my breath again, for the foremost of the five ships, as it dropped behind, had paused at our side, had veered a little closer as though still unsatisfied. Closer it came, and closer, until the serpent-creatures in its pilot room were clear to our eyes, as it and the ships behind it raced on with ourselves through space. Then suddenly from that foremost ship a signal of brilliant light flashed to those behind it, and at once all five drove straight toward us!
"They've seen us!" shouted Jhul Din. "They know we're not of their own fleet!"
But as he shouted I had leapt to the order-tube, had cried into it a swift command, and then as the five ships veered in toward us there leapt from our vessel's sides long, swift shafts of crimson light, the deadly red rays with which our captured ship had been equipped at Canopus, narrow brilliant shafts that touched the two foremost of those five racing ships and annihilated them even as they sprang toward us. The other three were leaping on, though, their death-beams reaching like great fingers of ghostly light through the void toward us, and I knew that we could not hope to escape them by flight, since they were as swift as our own craft; so in a moment I made decision, and shouted to Korus Kan to head our ship about.
Around we swept, in one great lightning curve, and then were rushing straight back upon the three racing ships. Into and between them we flashed, death-beams and red rays stabbing thick through the void in the instant that we passed them. I saw one of the great pale beams slice down through the rear end of our ship, heard shouts from beneath as those of our crew in that end were wiped out of existence, and then we were past, were turning swiftly in space and flashing back outward again, and saw that two of the three ships before us were visible only as great crimson flares, the other ship hanging motionless for the moment as though stunned by the destruction of its fellows.
"Four gone!" yelled Jhul Din, as we flashed toward the last of the five ships.
That last ship, though, paused only a moment as we raced toward it, and then suddenly flashed away into the void to the right, vanishing instantly from sight as it raced in flight toward the Cancer cluster. We had destroyed and routed the squadron that had challenged us, had broken through the enemy's great patrol! Korus Kan was opening our power-controls to the utmost, and now the throbbing and beating of the great generators beneath was waxing into a tremendous, thrumming drone, as we shot outward into space, the Cancer cluster falling behind us as we flashed out at a tremendous and still steadily mounting speed.
Out—out—into the vast black vault of sheer outer space that lay stretched before and about us now, the awful velocity of our great craft increasing by tens of thousands, by hundreds of thousands of light-speeds, as we shot out into the untrammeled void. Behind us the mighty, disk-like mass of flaming stars that was our universe was contracting in size each moment, dwindling and diminishing, but before us there glowed out in the vast blackness misty little patches of light, universes of suns inconceivably remote from our own. Strongest among them glowed a single light-patch, full before us, and it was on it that our eyes were fixed as our ship at utmost speed plunged on. It was the Andromeda universe, and we were flashing out into the mighty void of outer space toward it at a full ten million light-speeds, to seek the help which alone could save our universe from doom!
