He assented briefly, and in the next moment we saw through the window that the gigantic black curtain of the cloud was sliding sidewise as our cruiser turned in space to coast along its edge. At once Jhul Din and I began our work. Bending over the dials of the recording-instruments, the Spican and I made quick readings as the ship moved on.
All ether-conditions outside the cruiser seemed normal, however, with no strong currents or maelstroms anywhere near us. Nor were our other instruments more enlightening, for none registered any unusual force. For more than an hour, while Korus Kan held the cruiser in a steady course along the cloud's edge, we kept to our watch of the dials, but with no greater result.
I turned from the instruments to the window, shaking my head. "I'm afraid it's useless, Jhul Din," I said. "It never was but a slender chance that we might find anything this way, and I'm afraid it has failed."
He looked thoughtfully with me toward the vast black wall of darkness. "Yet it's our one chance to learn anything," he said. "It may be that on the cloud's other side we could discover something."
"We'll have to try it, but I don't place much faith in it," I told him. "Whatever it is about the cloud has caused those-"
With stunning force I was hurled slantwise across the instrument room to strike in one of its corners, Jhul Din flung with me. The next instant saw the room's walls spinning madly around us and rattling us inside them like peas in a box. There were hoarse cries from the generator rooms and a wild uproar through all the cruiser as with awful speed and force it was whirled over and over.
Bruised and half dazed, I retained enough presence of mind to clutch at the rail of the pilot room stair as I was thrown against it, and as Jhul Din was flung past me a moment later I grasped and held his arm. Together we struggled up into the pilot room, where we glimpsed Korus Kan clinging to the wheel-standard as the room gyrated about him.
"The cloud!" he cried. "It's the force they told us of-it's drawing us into the cloud!"
"Into the cloud!"
The cold of outside space seemed about us in the fear that for a moment held us, for as we looked from the windows of the whirling pilot room we saw instantly that the Antarian was right. Our cruiser was hurtling at tremendous speed straight toward the vast region of darkness we had been coasting.