Outside the Universe

by Hamilton Edmond

Now, as we sped out into the clean cold void of space again, our ships again taking up their formation and heading toward the galaxy, I turned to Jhul Din.

"It's their last attempt to stop us," I cried. "But we've won clear-nothing can keep us from reaching them now."

And as our great fleet again shot forward at full speed through the void I stood now no longer tense or anxious but with the old lust for battle burning up in me stood grimly silent with eyes upon the universe ahead as its glowing mass of stars broadened across the heavens before us. For now, I knew, we had plunged through the last trap, the last delay, by which the serpent-creatures had planned to hold back and destroy us, and now nothing could prevent the final attack toward which we were racing. Our great flight outward from our galaxy for help, our terrible captivity in the dying universe, our mad flight to the Andromeda universe, and our struggle there in which one of us had gone to his end, our sailing for the dying universe with the great Andromedan fleet-all these things were drawing now toward their climax, when we were to pour down on the Cancer cluster and the serpent-creatures there in our great attack.

Humming, throbbing, droning, on through the void our great fleet shot, force-shaft cylinders and other mechanisms clanging now beneath us as our Andromedan crew cleared the decks below for action. With every hour, every moment, the galaxy's stars were shining in greater splendor ahead, a giant belt of suns across the firmament before us. My eyes roved across them, from the yellow splendor of Capella to the white brilliance of Rigel, and then something of emotion rose in me as they shifted to Antares, the great crimson star that had been Korus Kan's home sun. But my eyes hardened again as they turned toward the Cancer cluster, a great ball of suns glowing in resplendent glory at the galaxy's edge before us; for well I knew that upon the thronging worlds of its clustered suns the countless races of the serpent-creatures were gathered now, completing the gigantic death-beam cone with which they would sweep out to annihilate all life in our galaxy save themselves. Straight toward that ball of suns our fleet was leaping, and now Jhul Din turned toward me.

"You're going to drive with our fleet straight into the cluster itself?" he asked, and I nodded grimly.

"It's our only chance." I said. "All the serpent-hordes are on the worlds inside it, and we've got to reach it to destroy that great cone before they finish it."

Now the galaxy's flaring suns filled the heavens before us as our mighty armada raced in through the outer void toward them, the Cancer cluster flaming ahead in all the blinding glory of its gathered suns, those suns appearing on the upper part of our space-chart as a mass of glowing little circles, toward which our vast swarm of ship-dots was speeding. Minutes more of our terrific speed would see us reaching that cluster, I knew, and I turned toward the bank of keys before me to shift our great fleet's mass into a formation that would allow us to pour down into that ball of suns in our great attack. But as I did so, as I reached toward those keys, there came from Jhul Din a cry that held me rigid. He was gazing up toward the space-chart, and pointing.

"Look-in the cluster," he cried. "Those dots-those ships-"

I looked swiftly up, saw that among the massed sun-circles of the Cancer cluster, on the chart, were moving a countless number of tiny dots of black, dots that were sweeping outward from and between those sun-circles, ships that were rising from the worlds around them. Out between the cluster's glowing circles they moved, toward us, in thousands, in tens of thousands, until all hung just outside it, a huge swarm of dots as large or larger than our own, a full hundred thousand mighty ships. There in space outside the cluster that vast fleet hung, and then was moving out toward us, a tremendous swarm of dots that was creeping down across the space-chart toward our own up-moving swarm, a mighty armada that was rushing out through the void toward our own inrushing armada. And as I gazed up at the great chart, stunned, there came from beside me the Spican's cry again.

"It's the serpent-creatures' fleet! They've seen us coming-know we mean to attack the cluster and destroy the cone-and they've massed all their ships and are coming out to meet us!"