10. Flight and Pursuit
"Through the vibration-wall!" I cried, as our ship raced out at utmost speed. "Out of the serpent-universe—and we may yet get to the Andromeda universe in time!"
The eyes of Jhul Din and Korus Kan were as aflame with excitement as my own, at that moment, and from beneath came the triumphant shouts of our followers. There remained of the latter hardly more than a bare score, I knew—few enough to handle the great ship, but the control and operation of it were so simple that by standing alternate watches we could hold our course through space. Briefly I explained this to Korus Kan, he nodding assent, when from Jhul Din there came a cry that caused both of us to spin around toward him in swift alarm. The big Spican's eyes were fixed upon the space-chart above, and as we turned he raised an arm toward it.
"The five hundred serpent-ships!" he cried. "They've come out through the great wall too—they're after us!"
The blood in my veins seemed to chill with sudden renewal of our former tenseness and terror, as on the space-chart we saw, racing out after us from the dying universe, the five hundred-odd serpent-ships that had risen from the giant central world to pursue us, and that now, undeterred by the fate of the ten ships we had lured to destruction, were speeding out into the great void after us. Moments they had been delayed, apparently, by the confusion and chaos there in the opening between the space-forts, but though in those moments we had flashed far ahead their close-massed ships came on after us at their topmost speed—a great pursuit that they were carrying out into the void between the universes!
"They'll pursue us to the bitter end!" I exclaimed, my eyes on the chart. "They'll go to any length rather than let us get to the Andromeda universe!"
I wheeled about, my eyes seeking our speed-dials. Already we were traveling through the void at our own highest velocity, a full ten million light-speeds, but the shining mass of the Andromeda universe seemed infinitely distant in the blackness ahead, with that swift, relentless pursuit behind us. A moment more and Jhul Din strode out of the pilot room down to the great, throbbing generators beneath, striving to gain from them a fraction more of speed. For now was beginning, we knew, the most bitter of all chases, a stern chase with vast abysses of space lying between us and the universe that was our goal, and with the five hundred flying craft of the serpent-creatures close behind.
On—on—moment after moment, hour after dragging hour, our ship hummed through the awful void, flashing with each moment through countless millions of miles of the infinity of blackness and emptiness that lay about us, with the half-thousand ships of the serpent-creatures coming grimly on behind. The far-flung, dim-glowing dying universe behind us glowed even dimmer, diminishing in extent, too, as we shot onward, while before us the shining disk-mass of the Andromeda universe shone ever more brightly; yet it was with a terrifying slowness that that disk largened as we flashed toward it. Tensely I stood with Korus Kan in the pilot room, gazing toward it, and even then could not but reflect upon what a strange spectacle it would all have presented to any observer who could have seen it: a spectacle of one mighty ship pursued by a half-thousand, as it raced through the void from one universe to another, manned by a score of dissimilar beings drawn from the stars of still a third universe, and carrying with them its fate.