Smoothly we sank downward from the great hall's ceiling to its floor, landing upon a great disk inset in that floor beneath the descending shaft and glowing with dark purple light, the glowing force that combatted gravitation enough in the shaft above it to allow us to float gently down. For the moment, though, I paid not so much attention to it as to the strange, vast hall in which we now stood. Colossal in size and circular of shape, the mighty, white-lit room was as large or larger even than the great Council Hall of the Federated Suns, in our own universe, though it was far different in appearance. There were in it no ranks of seats, the smooth floor being divided by crossing black lines into thousands of squares of equal size, and in each of those squares there rested, motionless, one of the gaseous Andromedans, thousands upon thousands of them, like massed columns of thick green vapor, being grouped in the great room about us.
We stood ourselves on a section of the floor at the room's very center, raised a few feet above the rest of the floor, and except for the two purple-glowing disks beneath the ascension and descension shafts the only object upon this raised portion was a great globe of what seemed misty glass, exactly like the tiny one with which the Andromedans had first communicated with us, but of vastly greater size, being some dozen feet in diameter. Toward this, as we hesitated there at the center of that gigantic assemblage of strange, silent figures, there moved the leader of the Andromedans who had accompanied us. He grasped with his two gaseous arms the metal studs that projected out from the great globe's base, and at once the misty sphere glowed with inward light, while in it appeared the thousand Andromedan ships, flashing out into the void, rescuing us from the serpent-fleet, and bringing us back into their own universe, a swift succession of explanatory scenes.
This explanation completed, the Andromedan moved back from the great sphere and motioned me toward it. Slowly I stepped forward, sensing the gaze of the massed, silent thousands on me. I knew that it was the supreme moment of our mission, the moment for which we had battled our way through three universes, the chance to obtain from this great council of the Andromedans the help that might save our universe. I glanced back to the anxious faces of my friends, drew a long breath, and then grasped the two studs before me, concentrating all my thoughts on what I wished to express, as the big sphere above glowed with inward light again, the thrilling current from it rushing into my brain.
In the glowing globe now appeared our universe, a great galaxy of stars floating in space like their own. Swiftly, with shifting thoughts, I showed them its throngs of peopled worlds, the traffic that swept between its suns, the ordered life of its teeming, dissimilar races. Then as my thoughts shifted again they saw the first five thousand serpent-ships rushing in upon that galaxy, destroying all our fleet and settling upon the suns and worlds of the Cancer cluster, saw us fleeing inward and then turning to capture one of the serpent-ships by boarding it in mid-space. Then, briefly, the globe flashed forth the interior of our own great Council Hall, with our Council Chief exhibiting and explaining the records of the serpent-people which we had captured in their ship. In a swift flash I explained the meaning of those records, a flash that showed the serpent-people, masters of the suns and worlds of our own universe, sailing out with increased powers to attack the Andromeda universe, and as that flashing scene showed in the great globe I saw a silent stir of excitement run through the massed thousands about me.
In another moment, though, the globe's scene had shifted back to the Council Hall, with ourselves receiving our orders from the Council Chief, entering our captured serpent-ship and slanting up and outward, bursting past the patrolling serpent-ships, through the void of outer space, only to be captured by the other serpent-ships that had come out to meet us. Our flight then to the serpent-universe, our glimpse of the vast serpent-fleet being built, and the colossal death-beam cone, and the escape of Jhul Din appeared in swift succession. Then came our own strange captivity, our rescue by Jhul Din and escape outward from the serpent-universe through the great space-forts, and our pursuit and final rescue by the thousand Andromedan ships. Then, as our final plea, I showed the vast hordes of serpent-ships and their irresistible mighty death-beam cone sailing out from the dying universe toward our own, rushing upon our galaxy and wiping out all its races. The great globe then went dark, as I released my hold upon its studs and stepped back from it. Our mission was ended, and its success or failure lay in the hands of the massed Andromedans about us.
There was a moment of stillness, a moment in which, I knew, the fate of our universe and of all in it was being decided, a moment in which the silence of the mighty hall seemed thunderous to our strained nerves. Then I saw each of the thousands of Andromedans in the hall reach down toward two smaller metal studs that projected from the floor before each, and as the great globe beside me glowed again with light, I sensed quickly that upon it would be registered the decision of the majority of the great council about me, the method used by them in reaching and registering a decision. Tensely we watched the great glowing globe, and then in it appeared another scene.
It was a scene of countless ships, gleaming flat Andromedan ships, gathering from all the suns and worlds of their universe, upon the giant central world where we were now, tens of thousands of great ships that rose from that world, slanting up and outward. Among them were a hundred ships quite different from the rest, great hemispheres of gleaming metal that rose as smoothly and swiftly as the rest, domed side uppermost; and as though in explanation there flashed in the globe a swift picture of those same hundred domed craft hanging above great suns in the Andromeda universe, projecting down beside and around them great walls and sheaths of the dark-purple glowing force that neutralized gravity, so that those suns, screened from the pull of the suns on their right by a great wall of that glowing purple force, would move away to the left in answer to the pull of the suns there, or vice versa. These, I realized swiftly, were the great sun-swinging ships by means of which the Andromedans had placed their suns in ordered circles, and now in the globe with all the tens of thousands of ordinary flat Andromedan ships they were flashing out into space. Then came a brief scene of the whole vast Andromedan fleet flashing down out of space upon the dying universe, bursting through the opening in the great blue-force wall around it and attacking all the serpent-creatures' suns and worlds!
The next instant the globe had gone dark again, but I knew now what the decision of the council was, and I whirled around to my friends with excitement flaming up in me. "They're going to help us!" I cried. "They're going to mass all their great fleet and with it and their sun-swinging ships sail to attack the serpent-universe!"
I can not remember now the moments that followed that momentous decision, so overwhelming to us then was the consciousness that we had succeeded in our mission, had dared the awful void and the perils of three universes and had procured the help that might save our galaxy. I remember being led by our Andromedan guides into and through other rooms off the great hall; of the thousands of gaseous figures of the council crowding up the shaft toward the surface above, to speed to every quarter of their universe and summon all their fighting-ships; of Jhul Din noisy with exultation and Korus Kan quiet as ever, but with gleaming eyes. Then all about me seemed dissolving and darkening as the utter fatigue of our strenuous last hours overcame me, a fatigue through which only my knowledge of our mission's importance had so far borne me, and beneath which now I sank into dreamless sleep.