Before me now another figure rose, one of the strange plant-men of Capella, of the people who had evolved to intelligence and power from the lower plant-races there; his body an upright cylinder of smooth, fibrous flesh, supported by two short, thick legs and with a pair of powerful upper arms, above which was the conical head whose two green-pupiled eyes and close-set ears and mouth completed the figure. In a moment he too had strode down toward the platform, and then, over the tumultuous shouts of those in the great hall, which had risen now to a steady roar of voices, there came the clear voice of the Council Chief, with the third name.
"Ker Kal of Sun-828!"
For a moment I sat silent, my brain whirling, the words of the Council Chief drumming in my ears, and then heard the excited voices of the members about me, felt myself stumbling to my feet and down the aisle in turn toward the platform. Beating in my dazed ears now was the tremendous shouting clamor of all the gathered members, and beneath that surging thunder of thousands of voices I sensed but dimly the things about me, the Arcturian and Capellan beside me, the figure of the Council Chief on the platform beyond them. Then I saw the latter raise a slender arm, felt the uproar about me swiftly diminishing, until complete silence reigned once more. And then the Council Chief was speaking again, this time to us.
"Sar Than, Jor Dahat and Ker Kal," he addressed us, "you three are chosen to go where only three can go, to approach the nebula and make a final effort to discover and counteract whatever force or forces there are causing this cataclysm that threatens us. Your cruiser is ready and you will start at once, and to you I have no orders to give, no instructions, no advice. My only word to you is this: If you fail in this mission, where failure seems all but inevitable, indeed, our Galaxy meets its doom, the countless trillions of our races their deaths, the civilizations we have built up in millions of years annihilation. But if you succeed, if you find what forces have caused the spinning of the mighty nebula and are able to halt that spin, then your names shall not die while any in the Galaxy live. For then you will have done what never before was done or dreamed of, will have stayed with your hands a colossal cosmic wreck, will have saved a universe itself from death!"
2
As the door of the little pilot room clicked open behind me I half turned from my position at the controls, to see my two companions enter. And as the Arcturian and Capellan stepped over to my side I nodded toward the broad fore-window.
"Two more hours and we'll be there," I said.
Side by side we three gazed ahead. About us once more there stretched the utter blackness of the great void, ablaze with its jeweled suns. Far behind shone the brilliant white star that was Canopus, and to our right the great twin suns of Castor and Pollux, and above and beyond them the yellow spark that was the sun of my own little solar system. On each side and behind us hung the splendid starry canopy, but ahead it was blotted out by a single vast circle of glowing light that filled the heavens before us, titanic, immeasurable, the mighty nebula that was our goal.
For more than ten days we had watched the vast globe of flaming gas largening across the heavens as we raced on toward it, in the heat-resistant cruiser that had been furnished us by the Council. Days they were in which our generators had hummed always at their highest power, propelling our craft forward through space with the swiftness of thought, almost—long, changeless days in which the alternate watches in the pilot room and the occasional inspection of the throbbing generators had formed our only occupations.