"This dying system is not for us, Shi-Zik. The five largest and outermost planets are but barren, frigid rock. But if you wish, we shall go inward."
His limbs flashed over the huge control-console. Gradually the ship slowed in its headlong pace. Nearly the size of a small planet, was this ship; entire generations had been born and died aboard it, during the trip between Galaxies. Somewhere deep inside, perpetual generators pounded out the power that had driven them through space faster than light.
N'Zik and Shi-Zik had never seen those generators, nor were they conscious now of the smooth threnody. They had known it always. Miles of inter-locking corridors extended behind them too, a veritable city with vast rooms of wonderful machinery—but none of this had they ever seen. For DEATH had struck suddenly there, was lurking there still.
The huge metal tomes told of it. N'Zik and Shi-Zik had read that history so often that they knew it now by heart. They knew how and why the last generations had been wiped out.
The first scientists had planned well for the safety and well-being of the generations to come, but they had overlooked one thing. Within their own Galaxy they had been cognizant of certain cosmic rays, which were harmless insofar as they had no apparent effect on living tissues. However, in that utter vacuity between Galaxies no such rays existed! And there between Galaxies new generations were born. Five, ten, a dozen generations. And at last—they had reached the new Galaxy....
Whether the cosmic rays here differed, or whether the new generations had simply lost all resistance to them, was never fully known. The race had died by thousands as the hard rays penetrated the ship. The scientists worked feverishly to build up a section with layers of their heaviest metals; but by the time they had achieved a sufficient thickness, a few dozen had survived.
N'Zik and Shi-Zik were the last of that final group.
Now, under N'Zik's sure guidance, the ship crossed the orbits of the outer planets. He had thrown over the deceleration control, but their speed was still tremendous.
In a few minutes craggy fragments of rock were skimming past their hull. The larger ones were deflected by automatic repulsion plates and the few that drifted through became molten upon contact. Such was their speed.