"What difference does it make?" asked Herb. "Unless we can do something about this energy, we're going to be goners, anyhow. And that goes for the other universe as well. If they could save themselves by ruining us, maybe they'd do it, but it's a cinch that if we puff out they go along with us.”
"That's right," agreed Kingsley. "It would be to their interest to help us beat off the Hellhounds on the chance that we might find something to save the universes. They wouldn't be very likely to turn on us until somebody had figured out something about this energy.”
"And we can't control something we don't understand," said Caroline. "We have to find out what that energy is, what it's like, what form it is apt to take, something about it, so we will know how to handle it.”
"How much more time have we to find some way to save us from the big explosion?" asked Gary.
"Very little time," said the Engineer. "Very little time. We are perilously close to the danger point. Shortly the two space-time frames of the two universes will start reacting upon one another, creating the lines of force and stress that will set up the energy fields in the inter-space.”
"And you say there is another race that can tell us about this inter-space?”
"One other race I know of," said the Engineer. "There may be others, but I know only of this one. And it is hard to reach. Perhaps impossible to reach.”
"Listen," said Gary, "it is our only chance. We might as well fail in reaching them as waiting here for the energy to come and wipe us out. Let a couple of us try. The others may find something else before it is too late.
Caroline's hyperspheres might take care of the energy, but we can't be sure. And we have to be sure. The universe depends upon us being sure. We can't just shoot in the dark.
We have to know.”