The Project Gutenberg eBook of The cosmic cloud
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Title: The cosmic cloud
Author: Edmond Hamilton
Illustrator: C. C. Senf
Release date: August 12, 2026 [eBook #79352]
Language: English
Original publication: Indianapolis, IN: Popular Fiction Publishing Company, 1930
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79352
Credits: Greg Weeks and Mary Meehan
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COSMIC CLOUD ***
The Cosmic Cloud
By Edmond Hamilton
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Weird Tales, November 1930.]
[Illustration: _"A voice whispered tensely in his ear in the
tongue of the galaxy."_]
We three stared at the Chief across the metal desk for a moment before
I broke the silence.
"But it's incredible!" I exclaimed. "You must be mistaken, sir--nothing
in the galaxy could cause a thing like that!"
Jhul Din and Korus Kan nodded in agreement beside me, but the Chief of
the Interstellar Patrol shook his head.
"Yet something in the galaxy _is_ causing it, Dur Nal," he said. "I
tell you that this thing has taken thousands of interstellar ships in
the last few days without giving us any clue to its cause!"
Slowly I shook my head. "I don't doubt what you say, sir," I told him,
"but it seems impossible."
The four of us were sitting in a small metal-walled room through whose
window came the red light of mighty Betelgeuse, the sun upon one of
whose planets we were. The room was part of the Betelgeuse headquarters
of the Interstellar Patrol, and to it but hours before from the great
central headquarters at Canopus had come Lacq Larus, Chief of the
Patrol. His first act had been to summon our cruiser, which had been
patrolling off Betelgeuse, and he sat considering us now, a great
plant-man of Capella whose strange green fibrous body was tense and
whose green-pupiled eyes were unmoving as he faced us.
Jhul Din and Korus Kan and I sat across the desk from him. Jhul Din
was of Spica, a big powerful crustacean-man, his strong body armored
in black shell, his quick eyes protruding. Korus Kan, of Antares, was
typical of that star's races, his upright man-like body being of metal,
with lens-like eyes, a tireless body-machine in which his living brain
was cased. I, earth-man, completed the trio, and though the members of
the Interstellar Patrol are from every peopled sun no stranger three in
appearance could have been found in it.
Lacq Larus had been looking thoughtfully out of the window across the
teeming world of Betelgeusans outside, but turned and again faced
us. "I will explain to you the whole situation," he said, "for it's
imperative that you three understand it.
"As you know, our galaxy is a great swarm of suns floating in the vast
gulf of space, each with its own worlds and peoples. All, of course,
are ruled by the Federation of Suns, and all are policed by our own
Interstellar Patrol. Back and forth between these suns has gone the
galaxy's interstellar commerce for ages, countless thousands of great
space-ships plying from sun to sun without hindrance. But now at last
this great commerce of the galaxy is threatened with disaster!
"That threat lies in what we have always known as the cosmic cloud, a
vast cloud of utter darkness that lies, as you know, near the galaxy's
center. It has always lain there, a tremendous area of utter blackness
billions of miles in extent, and of it our scientists have been able
to say with certainty only that it is a tremendous region where the
light-vibrations are simply non-existent.
"More than that none could say, for no ship can venture into that
region without plunging into absolute lightlessness, so that none knows
what may lie inside. It is true that some years ago one of the galaxy's
scientists, Zat Zanat by name, ventured into the cloud to explore it in
a ship with some assistants, having some new theory concerning it which
he wished to test. But this scientist, one of the scientists of the sun
of Deneb, never emerged from it and without doubt met death in it as
many luckless ships in the past have done.
"None other has ever desired to penetrate into the great cloud and the
galaxy's interstellar ships have always routed their course far around
it, to escape the danger. But suddenly, a few days ago, hundreds of
ships passing near the great cloud in space were drawn abruptly into it
by some titanic and irresistible force. Their calls for help came to
our distance-phones and a score of cruisers of the Patrol were rushed
to the cloud's edge to investigate. But they found that the unfortunate
swarms of ships had vanished inside it by then, their calls ceasing
soon after, and there was no trace of what force had whirled them in!
"Instantly warnings were broadcast to all interstellar ships to
avoid the neighborhood of the cloud. The cruisers of the Patrol then
reconnoitered completely around it for more than a day, finding
nothing unusual. At last we were convinced that it was some great
ether-disturbance that had whirled the luckless ships inside, and
orders were given that the space-lanes around the cloud were again
safe. Yet the interstellar traffic had been streaming around it for
no more than a few hours when the thing was repeated, and more than a
thousand other great ships were drawn with terrific power and swiftness
into the great blackness.
"Again all traffic around the cloud was suspended and again a squadron
of Interstellar Patrol cruisers flashed to the scene. But they found
nothing more this time, no sign of what had caused the great disaster.
For two days we waited, though, but the cruisers there reported all
as usual. So with some misgivings we yielded to the clamor from the
galaxy's suns and allowed the ships again to route their course around
the great blackness. A day passed without mishap and we began to
breathe easier. And then the thing struck again, and again, but hours
ago, more than a thousand ships with all inside them were whirled into
the great cloud's darkness.
"This third disaster has caused something like a panic across the
galaxy. All realize now that interstellar traffic around the cloud
must be suspended until the thing is cleared up, and since the cloud
lies almost at the galaxy's center that means the crippling of our
interstellar commerce. Always, in time of great peril, the galaxy's
peoples have turned to the Interstellar Patrol to save them. They are
turning to us now to bring an end to this great threat, and we of the
Patrol must not fail chem."
Lacq Larus halted for a moment and as he did so the three of us were on
our feet.
"When do we start for the cloud, sir?" asked Jhul Din quietly.
The Chief smiled. "You have guessed it," he said. "I have summoned you
here to Betelgeuse, have come here from Canopus to meet you because it
is on you three that I now rely. You, Dur Nal and Korus Kan and Jhul
Din, saved all this galaxy once, when you dared outside our universe to
other universes to thwart those who would have loosed death on us.
"I am asking you, therefore, to dare again for the galaxy, to endeavor
to find what force it is that has whirled those thousands of ships into
the blackness of the cosmic cloud. I dare not send a number of cruisers
there, for all may be lost like the others. I do not even give you an
order to go, for it means certain death if that force manifests itself
again and draws you into the cloud. But if you can explore around its
edges you may be able with your recording-instruments to find out what
great ether-disturbance or unknown force it is that has caused these
terrible calamities, may save the galaxy from greater ones. I say
again though that it is not an order. If you, Dur Nal, and your two
lieutenants wish to go in your cruiser it is well, but if you do not
wish to you need not. What say you?"
He was looking at me fixedly, but my eyes were on the time-dial on my
wrist.
"We should reach the cloud's edge within ten hours," was all I said.
* * * * *
Minutes later our cruiser was slanting up at mounting speed from that
swarming world of Betelgeusans, our crew rushing about its throbbing
generators and Korus Kan and Jhul Din and I in its pilot room. With
Korus Kan at the wheel the long ship rose through the glare of the
great crimson sun and threaded through the masses of interstellar
shipping until it was speeding through the black gloom of space, with
all about us the shining hosts of the galaxy's suns.
Far ahead there stood out against the farther stars what seemed a small
black spot in the galaxy's star-swarm. It was, we knew, the colossal
cosmic cloud of darkness absolute into which thousands of ships had
been drawn to some strange fate, and whose secret, if secret there
were, we must discover. With the cruiser's hull quivering slightly and
with the generators beneath talking louder we hurtled at thousands of
light-speeds across the galaxy toward that lightless region.
Hour upon hour our cruiser flew like a thing of thought through the
vast spaces toward the cloud. At the highest speed safe to use inside
the galaxy we were traveling, and as we drew nearer the cloud's edge
our space-chart showed that no other ships were in space about us now,
all avoiding the cloud's strange menace. But our own craft hurtled
steadily on, and steadily the vast region of blackness grew greater in
the firmament before us.
In the cruiser's instrument room Jhul Din and I prepared the intricate
recording-instruments on which the success of our venture depended.
These were mechanisms connected to various indicators outside the
hull, which recorded all ether-currents and drifts and disturbances
around the ship, all electrical or radioactive or other forces, and all
conditions of temperature and pressure.
If it was really some unheard-of and recurring force or some tremendous
ether-disturbance that had swept the luckless ships into the cloud, we
should be able to determine its nature and source with these aids.
From the instrument room's window Jhul Din and I watched the great
cloud largen as we neared it. It seemed soon like a colossal black
curtain across the universe, blotting half the galaxy's suns from
sight, stretching across billions of miles. What mysteries did that
vast and enigmatic region of lightlessness contain?
At last Korus Kan's voice came down through the order-phone from the
pilot room. "We're within two million miles of the cloud's edge," he
reported. "What orders?"
"Turn right and coast at a hundred light-speeds along its edge," I told
him. "Jhul Din and I will start our observations, and I'll let you know
when to change course or speed."
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 slant-wise 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.
"Turn on full power!" I cried. "Try to bring the ship out of this,
Korus Kan!"
"I can't!" he shouted back. "I've got every generator on full but the
cruiser doesn't obey its wheel! It's some colossal magnet or magnetic
force inside the cloud that's drawing us!"
With every instant the tremendous wall of blackness, as sharply
defined as though material, was looming closer before our whirling
ship. While Korus Kan worked frantically with the controls, and while
the cries of our astounded crew came up to us from beneath, I seized
the distance-phone, in the hope of flashing word at least to others
in the galaxy of the nature of the force that had seized us. But the
distance-phone was going dead, affected by the magnetic force that was
drawing us to doom!
By then the great cloud was an appalling sight ahead of us, a vast maw
of darkness into which our cruiser was racing at tremendous velocity.
The ship's whirling had subsided somewhat and I yelled to Korus Kan
to make a last trial of its power. He strained the generators to the
breaking-point in the next moment, but it was useless, for nothing
could escape the relentless grip of the power that was drawing us on.
Another moment and the blackness was walling the firmament directly
before our plunging ship. Something made me turn round at that moment
to glance back toward the galaxy's shining suns as though for a last
look, and then even as I turned round again we were plunged into a
darkness to which the darkest night would have been as noonday, an
utter blackness in which no faintest ray of light existed!
I groped in the darkness for the switch of the cruiser's inside lights
but though it clicked beneath my fingers there came no answering
illumination. Light could not exist in this terrible region! And the
quivering of the cruiser about us told us that still at immense speed
we were being drawn in toward the cosmic cloud's heart.
On and on we rushed through that shrouding night, Jhul Din and Korus
Kan and I bracing ourselves in the pilot room with our hands upon each
other's shoulders, facing ahead as though to look through this utter
blackness which no eye could pierce. I think now that in those terrible
moments the three of us were but waiting in tacit silence for the end.
Even were the cruiser to free itself of the deadly force that gripped
it we could never now win out of this lightless region in which we
would wander blindly.
Still on toward the mighty cloud's heart raced the ship, and to me it
seemed that we must be very near its center. A tense expectation of the
end held all of us now. But abruptly we cried out together as there
came a mounting, hissing sound from outside the cruiser. Our craft was
rushing now through air, through an atmosphere!
At the same moment we were aware that it was slowing its tremendous
speed, that the mighty magnetic force that had drawn us inward appeared
to have vanished. The stunning wonder of the two things occupied us for
the moment to the exclusion of all else. Was there a world then here
at the cosmic cloud's heart, through whose atmosphere our ship was now
moving?
Suddenly my heart stood still as there came a slight jar against our
cruiser's side, followed by a succession of flopping sounds upon the
ship's top. There was silence for a brief instant while we listened
tensely in the utter darkness of the pilot room, and then came a clang
of metal against the cruiser's top, and the hiss of some strange force.
"It's some other ship outside!" I cried. "And they're trying to get
in--they're boarding us!"
"The top space-door!" Jhul Din shouted. "They're getting in there!" For
the clang of the door opening came to our ears at that moment and a
flood of cold air from outside rushed through the cruiser.
"Up to the space-door, then!" I yelled. "Hold it against them, whoever
they are!"
As we cried out we were bursting out of the pilot room, bumping against
walls and doors in the unrelieved darkness, rushing toward the corridor
into which that upper space-door opened. I heard the shouts of the
crew as they too blindly hastened upward, and then as I burst into the
corridor I sought I collided squarely in the darkness with something.
Something that was tall and bulky and that felt like cold flesh to
my touch. Instantly two great flap-like limbs or arms from it were
grasping me.
I struck out in the dark with sudden frenzied horror, but as I knocked
the unearthly thing from me others were about me, pouring down into the
corridor from the space-door above, from outside the ship. They were
all about us, in groups, scores, gripping me and Korus Kan and Jhul Din
and all our crew, while we struck out blindly against them.
* * * * *
I have fought the dread serpent-creatures in the hall of the living
dead, and I have had a part in the tremendous combat of three
universes, but never yet did I take part in a more terrible struggle
than that one. For it was a struggle in a darkness so absolute that we
could have no slightest glimpse of the creatures we fought, knowing by
touch only that they were things such as we had never come into contact
with before.
They were calling in flute-like tones to one another as their powerful
flap-arms caught and held us, tones oddly incongruous with the wild
uproar of the battle. They seemed to move as easily in the utter
darkness as we might do in light, and this fact gave them a tremendous
advantage over us. Because of that our wild struggle had in moments
been quelled, and as I was held tightly by two of the things I heard
the calls of my friends to me and realized that all of us had been
overpowered. These creatures of darkness had captured our ship!
Still holding us, they herded us toward one end of the corridor, and
then released us. Amazed, I took a step through the darkness toward one
of the corridor's doors. But in an instant I had halted, for through
the darkness a buzzing sound came to me and at the same time fiery,
tearing pain ran through every nerve in my body. I staggered back, and
the buzzing ceasing, the pain ended. Jhul Din and Korus Kan, who had
thought to escape also in the darkness, had experienced the same thing,
staggering back with me.
It was evident that our strange captors were aware in some way of
every move we made in the darkness, and that the buzzing was of some
pain-producing weapon of theirs. Later we were to learn that it was one
that set up electrical pain-currents in the nervous system. Pain is but
a sensation or electrical current in a certain nerve, and this strange
weapon was one that by induction set up pain-currents of more or less
intensity in every nerve in the body.
It was evident that we could not escape them in the darkness, so we
remained grouped at the corridor's end. We heard the flute-like voices
of the things calling to one another through the cruiser, and in a
moment of so more came the throbbing of its generators again and the
hiss of air outside as it began to move. In awe we listened.
"What can they be?" whispered Korus Kan. "Creatures of
darkness--creatures of the cosmic cloud who move in its darkness as
though in light!"
"There must be a world here," I answered, "through whose atmosphere
we're moving now. They've come up from it to capture our ship and must
be taking us down to its surface now."
"But a world in this perpetual darkness? How are they able to live--to
move?"
"Who can say? Whatever they are, it is clear that they have pulled the
thousands of the galaxy's ships into the cloud as they did ours, for
their own reasons. I wonder what fate the other ships met."
* * * * *
Minutes passed while the cruiser throbbed through the darkness;
then its speed decreased quickly and with a slight jar it landed
upon a solid surface. At once the doors that had been closed were
clanging open again and the flute-voiced creatures of darkness, using
their pain-producing weapons to control us, were herding us out of
the corridor and through the space-door to emerge upon a solid,
smooth-paved surface. All about us was still darkness absolute but
we felt ourselves in open air, on the surface of a world of unending
darkness here at the cosmic cloud's heart.
Our captors began to march us forward. We moved blindly, controlled
by their couches or pushes. We heard a great babel of flute-voices,
of innumerable creatures coming and going around us. Reaching my hand
forth occasionally I ascertained that we were marching along a series
of smooth-walled and wide-doored buildings. From their doors came
sometimes the clash and clang of machinery operating inside, while in
and out of others were swarming hordes of flute-voiced creatures, their
flopping steps sounding all around us.
It was evident that we were being taken through a city--a city of
darkness absolute in which these creatures of darkness came and went as
we of light would do in our own sunlit cities.
I began to understand, though, as we marched along, how these creatures
could move so surely in darkness, and whispered to Korus Kan and Jhul
Din that it was by their sense of hearing that they must do so, since
it seemed to be entirely by the sound of our footsteps that they
controlled and guided us. Yet was it possible that any race of beings
could live and flourish thus and raise their cities in the cosmic
cloud's darkness with only hearing to aid them?
Twice our captors wheeled our group to right or to left as though
following a definite course through the streets of the lightless
city. In a few moments more, though, when they touched us with their
flap-arms to make us again turn, I misunderstood the touch and took a
step to the right instead of the left. Instantly agony shot through my
every nerve as a buzzing sounded directly beside me. That agony was so
terrible and so unexpected that it made me do what never else would I
have done, whirl around and strike through the darkness at the thing
behind me with all my frenzied strength.
My clenched fist drove into the cold, bulky body of the thing and I
felt it knocked backward by the blow, heard the buzzing cease and
felt the pain stop as whatever weapon the thing had held rattled upon
the paving. Instantly from the other guards came flute-like cries and
the sound of flopping steps rushing toward me through the darkness. I
yielded to the first instinct as I heard them and threw myself away
from them, running blindly through the darkness as their cries sounded
behind me.
There came scuffling sounds and then the buzz of many of their weapons,
and as I heard cries of pain I realized that my friends and crew had
attempted to break loose also but had been halted by their captors.
Then after me through the darkness they were racing with quick,
flopping steps.
I ran madly forward, collided with a great creature and then with
another, and as I blundered away from them was aware that in this world
of perpetual darkness I was at a terrible disadvantage in attempting
to escape the creatures of darkness who pursued me. Flute-like cries
were sounding all along the street now, it seemed, a babel of shouts
of alarm spreading quickly over the city. As I blundered again into
a great creature whose flap-arms sought to grasp me I realized that
not for long could I elude them in this darkness to which they were
accustomed. Again I yielded to instinct, and as I felt beside me a wide
door I threw myself through it, crouched motionless just inside it and
behind the base of what felt to my touch like a great metal mechanism.
It seemed a great room in which I was, for I heard from far along it
through the darkness the humming and clanging of machinery, and also
the hurrying steps of many of the creatures of darkness as they left
their tasks to answer the alarm of cries in the street outside. Their
flapping limbs took them directly past me as they rushed to the door,
and I could have reached out in the darkness and touched them. I made
no move, scarcely daring to breathe; for though I was but a few feet
from them, I felt sure they could become aware of my presence in the
darkness only by any sounds that I might make.
I heard them answering in their strange voices utterances of the
creatures outside, heard the noise of the alarm gradually receding as
those who searched for me moved along the street. I breathed a little
easier for a moment, but only for a moment. For as the creatures who
had rushed to the door streamed back into the great room two of them
halted so close beside me that their bodies actually brushed slightly
against my arm.
Motionless as a statue I crouched there in the darkness, as the two
conversed in their fluting voices beside me. Were they to move a
fraction of an inch nearer they must discover me. Were the slightest
sound to come from me my discovery was certain.
At last, after what seemed an eternity of waiting, though it could
have been really no more than a few moments, the two passed on, and a
kindly providence kept them from brushing nearer me as they went. Soon
the activities of the great hall seemed resumed, the humming of its
mechanisms coming to me again through the darkness, and the sound of
the creatures among them moving from one to another.
The peril of immediate discovery seemed past, but how could I hope
to escape for long in this city, this world, of eternal darkness? I
could not move through it as the creatures that inhabited it did, as
surely as though in day; and to stumble blindly through its streets
meant swift discovery. How could I hope to find Korus Kan and Jhul Din
and the others in this strange world of which I could see nothing? It
seemed that by escaping for a while as I had done from our captors I
was but prolonging an agony of spirit that might otherwise have been
cut short, at least, by death.
In this desperate situation I strove to order my thoughts. It was
apparent that to remain where I was would be useless, since though I
might escape discovery for a short time it would inevitably come. It
would be better to make an effort, at least, to find the others and the
cruiser, even though such an effort would be stamped from the first as
hopeless. To attempt to pass through the streets of this city seemed
insane, yet to do so held the one slender chance of finding the others;
so I summoned all my courage and crept out through the wide door and
into the smooth-paved street outside.
There, pausing helplessly in the darkness, I listened intently. From
all along the street came the flopping steps of the creatures moving
this way or that. It seemed to me that it was along the edges of the
street that fewest of the creatures moved; so, hugging the smooth walls
of the buildings, I began to creep forward.
As flopping steps approached me through the darkness ahead I halted,
for I knew that the sound of my own steps would betray me to the keen
hearing of these creatures. In a moment the approaching creature had
passed me and again I took up my careful progress forward. Again I
halted as there came other steps near me. Slowly I made my way along
the street, crouching motionless whenever any of the creatures neared
me, praying that they might not collide with me. Blindly I felt my way
forward through this city of awful night.
At last I felt myself at the street's end, with no more of the
smooth-walled buildings beside me. I seemed emerging into a great open
space, across which came a tremendous bustle of activity. I moved out
a little into it, crouching every few instants as flopping steps came
and went about me, until I struck something like a great smoothly
curving wall of metal before me. For an instant I felt of it and then
was motionless in amazement, for it took but that instant for me to
recognize what was before me. It was a great interstellar ship, like
those that plied the galaxy in countless thousands, and like those that
had been drawn into this cosmic cloud in thousands!
* * * * *
For a moment astonishment held me to the exclusion of all else. That
this before me was one of the thousands of ships that had been drawn
into the cloud I could not doubt. Had all then been captured like our
own by these creatures of darkness? What could it mean?
I was aware that a tremendous activity was going on far around and
before me, and as I made my way cautiously through the darkness along
the hull of the ship I heard a stream of creatures pouring in and out
of its space-doors, busy carrying in things of metal that clanked
against the doors as they went through them. Avoiding them, I moved
to the side and in moments had come to another great interstellar
ship that was the center of a similar scene of activity. Evidently
there were a great number of them in the open space before me, and as
evidently they were being prepared and fitted by these creatures of
darkness for some great enterprise. But what enterprise--what could it
be?
I stifled the wonder and amazement that were strong in me, though, for
I realized that this swarming place was one of the most dangerous I
could encounter. It was inevitable that some of the creatures would
collide with me in the darkness if I stayed there long, so reluctantly
I crept back toward the street from which I had emerged.
It did not seem that street which I entered again, though, but a
narrower one. There were in it fewer of the city's creatures than in
the other street, though I heard still the flopping steps of many of
them hastening to and from the open space and interstellar ships which
I had just left. I started along it, blindly and aimlessly, not knowing
whether I was going back in the direction from which I had come, and
not caring greatly. For by that time it seemed clear to me that I was
destined to wander blindly through the darkness of the city until
discovered and captured, so slender seemed any hope that remained to me.
Still I observed all caution, crouching low each time the sound of
approaching creatures came to my ears, not moving until they had
passed. Once as I flattened myself thus the flap-like limb or foot of
the passing thing actually touched my hand, so close did it come to me,
but as I did not move the thing passed on.
After feeling through the darkness along this street for perhaps a
thousand yards, my greatest worry being to avoid the creatures who
emerged suddenly now and then from the doors along it, I was aware of a
still narrower street that branched from it. I took this way, and soon
realized that in this narrower way were few of the darkness creatures,
they taking the broader streets that crossed the city. I met but one
or two of the things in several thousand feet of progress along the
street, and though it was harder to elude them in the narrower way I
began to feel more confidence. It was that confidence that undid me,
for as I passed the door of a building without my usual precautions
there emerged suddenly from it one of the great creatures who collided
squarely with me.
For an instant the thing must have been even more surprized than I was,
and before it could realize what had happened I had flung myself upon
it, for well I realized that flight would not serve me now.
My hands sought in vain for a hold upon the smooth, cold body, even as
its own great flap-like arms wrapped themselves around me. The thing
seemed to have no head or neck whatever, and was almost featureless
also. But by the merest chance my hands in that first instance fell
upon a narrow aperture in the cold flesh of the upper part of the
body. Instantly I closed my hand over it, and as a strangled flute-cry
came from it I realized that I had found the monster's mouth. Holding
tightly to it and encircling its great body with my other arm I
wrestled wildly with it there in the darkness of the narrow street as
it sought to shake me off.
The strength of its flap-arms was tremendous, but they were impeded by
the fact that I had partly pinned them against its body. Yet it was
whirling me this way and that with tremendous force, against the walls
and paving of the street.
Nothing but choking sounds came from it, though, and I realized that
the creature was air-breathing even as I was and that my hold upon its
mouth-aperture was throttling it. Desperately I clung to retain the
hold, and with a strength as desperate the great thing tried to tear
me loose. I knew that a single cry would bring a swarm of the things
to the aid of this one, and the knowledge steeled my muscles. The wild
threshing of the creature seemed rapidly lessening, and in moments more
my strangling hold had done its work and with a few convulsive jerks
the monster went limp and dead.
I straightened from it, panting, then froze with renewed terror. Along
the narrow street other steps were approaching me, somewhat lighter
steps that were moving carefully as though in investigation, halting
now and then. As they came level with me they halted again, and I held
my breath. But in the next instance came the sound of the steps coming
straight toward me!
With something like a cry of despair on my lips I threw myself forward
at the approaching one through the darkness. I knew myself discovered,
expected, even as I leaped, the flute-like cry that would bring the
hordes in the neighboring streets upon me. But to my utter amazement,
my hands grasped not another cold and bulky-bodied creature of darkness
but a tall, erect man-like form that was making no resistance to me! I
felt short, flat bat-like wings behind that body, felt a man-like head
with big-beaked countenance, and then felt two muscular arms grasping
my shoulders while a voice whispered tensely in my ear in the tongue of
the galaxy.
"Quiet!" it whispered. "Another sound will bring them here from the
other street!"
"You----" I stammered. "You're from the galaxy outside--you speak its
tongue--but how in this darkness----"
"Not now!" the other warned. "I'll explain in a moment, but now we've
got to get out of this street and get this dead thing out before it's
discovered. Here--this way----"
Moving through the rayless opacity as a man in a dream might move, I
felt myself guided by the other back to the body of the thing I had
slain. We lifted it between us and my companion went a little along the
street until he turned into a narrow aperture between two smooth-walled
structures. Into this we cast the bulky body, and then crouched down
together by it. The other had moved through the darkness as easily as
through light, I had found, and my first whispered words as we crouched
together were of his ability to do so.
"Here," he answered, "these disks--upon your eyes----"
As he spoke he was taking from somewhere on his person two flat little
disks an inch or so across, one of which he fastened upon each of my
eyes by means of vacuum-sucked rims. I uttered an involuntary cry of
astonishment; for as I looked through those disks of glass, the utter
darkness that had been about me since first we had been drawn into the
great cloud gave way instantly to a pulsing violet light that illumined
all things around me.
I could see clearly the towering walls of the two buildings between
which we crouched, the narrow street outside in which I had had
my battle, and my companion also. He was, I saw, in truth a tall
bat-winged figure with strong beaked face and intelligent dark eyes,
and I recognized him at once as one of the batfolks who inhabit the
worlds of the sun Deneb. Deneb! Thought of it brought flashing back
to my mind a thing that the Chief had told us before our start, and I
seized my companion's arm.
"Zat Zanat!" I cried "You're Zat Zanat, the scientist of Deneb who went
into the cloud years ago to explore it!"
He nodded. "I am Zat Zanat," he acknowledged, "and years it has been,
in truth, since I came into this cosmic cloud, this place of darkness
and horror unutterable."
"But it's not darkness to you!" I exclaimed, pointing to the two disks
which he wore before his own eyes. "With these you can see in this
absolute blackness--though I don't know how."
"I can tell you that soon enough," he said, "but you--how comes it that
you were roaming this city of the creatures of darkness?"
Swiftly I explained to him how we had been sent to investigate the
drawing in of thousands of the galaxy's ships into the cloud, and how
having been drawn into it ourselves we had been captured and brought
to this city where I had made my escape. He listened intently, nodding
once or twice, and when I had finished asked a question.
"You wandered into one of the great masses of captured interstellar
ships they are preparing. But did you guess why they drew those ships
into the cloud, for what they are preparing them?"
At my negative his expression grew solemn. "They are preparing those
thousands of captured ships, Dur Nal," he said, "for an enterprise that
means horror to our galaxy: they are preparing to burst out of the
cosmic cloud upon the galaxy in all their numbers and seize our suns
and worlds in a conquest of darkness!"
"Of darkness?" I repeated, and he nodded.
"Within hours they leave this world and the cosmic cloud, to pour out
into the galaxy, for even as we talk here their great plans are coming
to their climax--plans that I have seen them form and carry out in the
years I have been here.
"For it is years I have spent on this world of darkness in the great
cloud. You have heard how years ago I, Zat Zanat, resolved to do what
none ever had done, to explore the cosmic cloud's interior. I knew that
light could not exist in it, for its darkness is formed by the meeting
of ether-currents which generate etheric vibrations of a frequency that
neutralizes all light-vibrations.
"It was my plan to see in the darkness of the cloud by the vibrations
beyond light, the ultra-violet vibrations. They were not neutralized,
not affected, and I devised certain ray-filter disks or glasses that
made the eyes sensitive to the ultra-violet vibrations, and thus showed
all things in violet light, since the ultra-violet rays have the same
sources as light-rays.
"Equipped with these glasses I and my assistants ventured into the
cosmic cloud in our cruiser. Its interior lay in violet light before
us, and after cruising in near its center we descried a small planet
that hung motionless in it. We landed to explore it and found it
inhabited by strange eyeless creatures of darkness who had evolved on
it in the ages and who, because they had evolved in utter darkness, had
no eyes at all but had a hearing so marvelously keen that it served
them instead.
"Hardly had we landed on this world when the creatures captured us.
They took us before their rulers, who examined us. These eyeless
creatures had never imagined that other worlds might lie outside the
cloud, nor had they any space-ships. But learning that there were many
worlds outside, they began to plan how they might pour out and seize
them, for their numbers were cramped on this small world.
"My assistants they slew, but kept me, torturing me with the
pain-producing weapons to gain information from me. They saw that they
would need thousands of great ships to enable them to pour out on
the galaxy, and had not the means of making them soon. They devised,
therefore, a way of drawing in the numbers of ships they needed from
those coming and going in the galaxy around the cloud.
"This was to increase many times the magnetism of their world. Every
world in space is a great magnet with north and south poles, as
you know, and they planned to increase the magnetic power of their
world thousands of times by a means they knew, which involved the
simultaneous electrical charging of both their world's poles.
"They prepared the apparatus at the poles and placed the control of it
on the top of the great building of their rulers. When that control was
closed the magnetism of this world at the cloud's heart was suddenly
intensified thousands of times. Its tremendous power reached out
through the cloud and caught great swarms of the interstellar ships
passing outside, and drew them swiftly in.
"Had they left the control closed their world would have drawn in
those ships to smash in annihilation against it, but just after the
helpless ships were drawn into their world's atmosphere the control was
opened and the magnetic grip released. Then while the swarms of ships,
helpless in the darkness, were in their atmosphere, their own ships
they had constructed in small numbers and which they could operate
in space by means of reflected electrical-sound vibrations instead
of sight--in these ships they went up and boarded and captured the
helpless vessels.
"They brought them down to this world's surface, those inside them
helpless in the darkness against these people of darkness. Almost all
inside the captured ships they slew with the pain-producers, but a few
who they thought would be useful to them they saved and prisoned as I
was prisoned in the building of the rulers.
"Soon afterward they repeated this process, closing the control and
drawing in new swarms of ships from outside the cloud. And again they
did the same thing and with the same result. The fourth time they
captured but one ship, your own, but this can have made no difference
to them, for their first three operations had brought them in thousands
of great interstellar ships in which all the eyeless hordes could be
contained.
"Already they had almost completed the refitting of these ships,
fitting them with their vibration-guiding devices, and also with the
mechanisms they will take with them for their conquest of the galaxy.
These are mechanisms each of which can destroy all light for a vast
space around it by neutralizing the light-vibrations even as is done by
neutral forces here in the cloud.
"And with these they will conquer the galaxy inevitably. For they
need but settle upon a world and with their mechanisms or one of them
destroy all light in and around it. Plunged in absolute darkness, its
blind peoples will be unable to strike back at the eyeless creatures
who, used to darkness and at home in it, can wipe out the others at
their leisure with the pain-producers.
"Already their last preparations are being finished, already their
hordes streaming toward the waiting masses of interstellar ships. It
was that knowledge that made me desperate, and in desperation I managed
to escape from the building of the rulers that was my prison. I have
kept always with me the ultra-violet sight-glasses, and with a pair of
them was able to elude the creatures, hoping to steal a cruiser and
get out to the galaxy to warn it. But I could not get near any of the
ships, and in going through the city in a vain hope of doing so I saw
you battling with and killing that creature and came to you."
* * * * *
When Zat Zanat had finished his strange tale I was silent for a moment,
gazing out into the narrow violet-lit street beside which we crouched.
"You think then that the only hope is to steal a cruiser and get out of
the cloud to warn the galaxy before the attack comes?" I asked.
He nodded quickly. "What other hope is there? Nothing can halt this
invasion of theirs, for before an hour more is past, it may well be,
their hordes will be pouring out of the cloud in their cruisers. You
can hear them making ready now."
"But what of my friends? I can't escape and leave Jhul Din and Korus
Kan here, or the others either."
He thought for a moment. "For your cruiser's crew there is no hope,"
he said, "for the rulers would order them slain at once. If your two
friends seemed of any importance, though, there is a chance that they
would have been let live for a while, prisoned there in the ruler's
building."
"Then it's for us to get them out," I said, and he laughed shortly.
"That's all," he agreed. "Well, one thing seems hardly more hopeless
than another, and we may as well try it. But we must get your friends
soon if ever, for these creatures of darkness will surely kill their
prisoners to the last one before they leave."
We stood up, then ventured cautiously into the narrow street. Looking
along its violet-lit length I could see in the broader street that
crossed it innumerable dark shapes hastening this way and that. The
buildings on each side of the streets were tall rectangular ones a few
hundred feet in height, their walls smooth and black like the paving
of the streets. They had doors but no windows whatever, seeming like
great boxes. It was with an effort that I remembered that in unending
darkness there was small need for windows.
Zat Zanat pointed out over the city to a great block-like building that
towered above all others, and on whose top I could make out the shapes
of resting space-ships.
"The building of the rulers," he whispered. "It's there your friends
are, if they still live."
"Lead on, then," I said, and without further words we started down the
narrow way.
As we came toward the broader avenue that crossed it we went more
carefully, and it was here that I had my first real glimpse of the
creatures of darkness with whom I had struggled and from whom and among
whom I had fled. They were much as my touching hands had informed me,
great upright bodies of dark flesh moving on two flap-like lower limbs
and with two similar arms. In the upper part of the body the only
features were the small opening of the mouth and great cup-like ears
set on each side of it.
As I watched, with something of a recurrence of my former horror, I
saw that the creatures seemed to judge all their movements by hearing,
avoiding one another when they heard the sound of steps, and avoiding
walls and other obstacles evidently by listening to the echo of their
own steps. The product of evolution in the unending darkness of the
cosmic cloud, hearing meant to them all that sight could mean to
children of light.
* * * * *
Zat Zanat, making a sign of caution to me, stepped forward and led the
way across the broader street, at a time when the stream of eyeless
creatures had lessened. As we approached its other side, though, the
approach of two of the monsters bearing a section of machinery between
them forced us to halt lest our steps be heard. The two passed but
inches from us, and unutterably strange and terrifying it was to stand
silent there in the violet-lit street with those creatures flopping
past. It took an effort to remember that when we made no sound they
could not perceive us.
As we moved on I glanced ahead and back and saw that over all the
city as far as the eye could reach, in the violet light which was in
reality not light, streams of the creatures were pouring toward great
square open spaces in the city where rested the thousands of captured
interstellar ships. The last pieces of mechanism were being loaded into
these, it seemed, and the monsters themselves were pouring into them.
They were on the point of making their start out through the cloud to
fall upon the galaxy's worlds!
The sight spurred us forward. Halting now and then and freezing
motionless as statues to allow some of the darkness creatures to pass
around or near us, we made our way through the streets until we were
nearing the great building of the rulers. By then the greater part of
the city's hordes had poured toward and into the massed interstellar
ships, and because of that we went forward more quickly.
Zat Zanat turned now and then to whisper caution, though, and the third
time that he did so I saw his eyes widen suddenly in terror behind his
glasses, saw him racing back toward me with arms outstretched. With
swift sense of panic I made to whirl around but before I could do so
two great flap-arms had closed on me from behind, and in grasping my
head knocked loose the glasses from my eyes.
Instantly I was plunged into the most profound darkness, and then as
there came a rush of feet was released by the creature that had held me
and sent staggering off into the darkness. I heard a terrific struggle
going on in the darkness beside me, knew that Zat Zanat and the monster
were locked in death-grips, but was helpless to aid my friend in the
blindness that was upon me.
Rushing toward the sound of battle I was knocked back and down by a
great blow that caught my face. I pawed frantically along the street in
search of the glasses I had lost, heard over the scuffle in the dark
the sound of Zat Zanat's gasps for breath and a smothered flute-like
cry from his antagonist.
Abruptly the sounds of struggle ceased, and somewhere in the darkness
a heavy weight thudded against the paving. Which of the two had won? I
waited statue-like for the answer until I was grasped by the shoulders,
and whirled around in sudden terror. But as I did so a hand was again
pressing the eye-disks against my eyes and as the whole scene sprang
from deep darkness into violet light once more I saw that it was Zat
Zanat, disheveled and panting for breath, and that the other lay dead
upon the paving.
"On to the building!" Zat Zanat gasped. "We've but minutes left, I
think!"
We sprang forward, running now along the street, for along its whole
length we could see none of the eyeless monsters, and were aware with
sinking hearts that all or almost all must be already in the waiting
ships. Minutes more would see them pouring out of the cloud to spread
darkness and doom over the galaxy!
Down the street we ran, careless now of any that might hear, until
there loomed at its end before and above us the vast box-like building
of the rulers. None of the creatures of darkness could be seen around
it, and we sprang toward the great square open door, then halted for an
instant despite ourselves.
Far away across the city was sounding a humming as of a gigantic swarm
of bees. It was a sound that I knew well and one that drove the blood
from my heart. It was the sound of the generators of great space-ships
throbbing, and as it sounded there was lifting over the city a mass of
hundreds of the gleaming ships!
Away to our right another mass of equal size was rising, and far behind
us in the strange city another, and still others at a greater distance
from us, thousands of huge interstellar ships loaded with all the
eyeless hordes! They were starting out from their world and from the
cloud on their career of dread conquest!
"They're starting!" I cried to Zat Zanat. "We're too late!"
"Not yet!" he cried. "Look, there's still a ship waiting on the roof!
They must be slaying their prisoners now!"
For on the roof of the great building before us we glimpsed a waiting
cruiser that had not yet risen. The significance of it and of Zat
Zanat's cry drove home to my brain at the same instant. It was waiting
for those in the building, those who were killing the prisoners they
had kept there. And Jhul Din and Korus Kan----!
I uttered a cry of rage, leapt forward and through the door with Zat
Zanat close behind me. I vaguely glimpsed great halls through which
we raced, queer seats and desks and instruments, and then with my
companion beside me was leaping up the broad flight of curving steps
ahead.
Up it and up another stair we raced, and then my face blanched and
I threw myself on at greater speed as from somewhere in the great
building over us came shriek on shriek of the most dreadful agony,
ending in each case in quick silence but taken up at once by other
voices.
"The pain-producers!" Zat Zanat sobbed. "They're slaying the prisoners
with them!"
"Jhul Din! Korus Kan!" I cried, madly, and then cried out again as
there came to me from above somewhere a faint answering shout. We
rushed up into the next level, along a broad corridor, and halted
before a solid door from behind which came the cries of my friends.
I threw myself frantically at the door but the secret of its lock
defied me, and it was diamond-hard in material. Other shrieks came now
from the floor above us, and then as they ended came the flopping steps
of the eyeless creatures coming down the stair to finish these their
last prisoners.
Zat Zanat jerked me swiftly aside from the door. "Wait!" he commanded,
and as I understood his purpose I froze instantly silent and motionless
with him.
Down the stair and into the corridor came a half-dozen great eyeless
monsters who carried with them funnel-like instruments of metal that
I knew were the pain-producers. Their flute-voices sounded as they
hastened along the hall toward the door by which we stood. We saw one
finger with his flap-hands the mechanism on the door, and then as it
swung open two had raised their funnel-like weapons toward the two
inside. But it was then that Zat Zanat and I leaped.
A wild chorus of flute-cries went up as we crashed into them, and two
sprawled motionless beneath our striking arms before the others could
comprehend what was happening. And at the same moment there rushed
through the open door Korus Kan and Jhul Din, the Antarian's powerful
arms striking right and left and Jhul Din's great voice booming in rage
as he laid about him.
Both Korus Kan and Jhul Din, though, were fighting in darkness
absolute, not having the ultra-violet light disks that enabled Zat
Zanat and me to see, and though five of the eyeless monsters had gone
down in the first frenzied moment of the battle the others were turning
with incredible speed, perceiving all our movements by hearing, to
strike back at us.
* * * * *
In a moment Korus Kan was down, drawing another of the eyeless things
with him. Jhul Din had blindly gripped two of them and was squeezing
the life from them with his immense arms. Before either Zat Zanat or
I could throw ourselves upon the remaining creature, though, he had
leaped back from the battle and had raised his funnel-like weapon. A
buzzing sound came from it and instantly through all of us in every
nerve seared a white-hot agony that seemed to rive our brains asunder.
I was staggering against the wall in that awful torture, and Korus Kan
and Jhul Din, though they had killed their opponents, were writhing in
agony. I saw the creature holding the weapon coming closer toward us
with it, knew that an instant more of that agony meant the death they
had dealt their prisoners. But at that moment there took place before
my eyes one of the bravest things that ever was looked upon.
Zat Zanat had been nearest the creature when it had turned its weapon
on us, and had staggered in that awful agony as we had, but as the
thing came closer he straightened as with a terrible effort, summoned
by a supreme command of his reeling brain all the power of his tortured
muscles, and bounded forward in a single agonized leap that sent him
crashing against the monster.
As he struck the creature its weapon was knocked from its grasp, and
as the pain that was killing us abruptly ceased we rushed to where the
two struggled and in a moment the creature lay dead with the others.
We staggered up unsteadily, Zat Zanat handing from his belt pouch
ultra-violet glasses to my two friends.
"To the roof!" he cried.
"The roof--that cruiser on it is our one chance to get out of the cloud
and warn the galaxy before the attack comes!"
Even as we cried out that, we were bounding up the curving stairs from
floor to floor until in a moment more we were bursting out onto the
broad flat roof of the great building. In a single glance we took in
the whole scene. At the roof's center rose a square block that was
the center of innumerable branching electrical connections and that
bore upon it a great lever-switch or control now open, the control Zat
Zanat had described which made of this world a colossal-powered magnet
when closed. To one side of the roof rested a long cruiser with no
occupants, the ship that had been awaiting the half-dozen creatures who
had tarried to slay the prisoners.
But as we burst out into the roof's violet light it was not at these
things we were looking but at what was around and above us. The whole
city, the whole world around us, were deserted! High above us we made
out a tremendous swarm of black spots, which were rapidly diminishing
in size as they moved away. _They were the thousands of interstellar
ships and they were going forth with all the eyeless hordes inside them
to the conquest of the galaxy!_
"They've started--started out of the cloud! We're too late!"
"Too late!"
The words seemed like tocsins of doom in our ears as we stood there
motionless, Jhul Din and Korus Kan and Zat Zanat and I, gazing at
that vast armada going out to spread death and destruction across our
universe. Never could the galaxy's peoples of light stand against those
dread people of darkness who would spread darkness before them. Never
could we outdistance them even to warn the galaxy of the coming attack.
As though petrified we stared after those receding swarms of ships. Too
late!
Abruptly our dazed brains became conscious of a strange sound beside
us. Zat Zanat was laughing. High and mirthless and hysterical laughter
it was; half choking and with his whole body trembling he reeled
sidewise across the roof toward the great block at its center. And in
the next moment, with the same strange high laughter upon his lips, he
had reached up to the big control-switch on the block and with a single
motion had closed it, a deep throbbing coming from beneath somewhere as
he did so.
We stared at Zat Zanat in frozen silence, saw him swaying toward
us, saw him pointing upward with face suddenly twisted, intense. We
looked up. The great swarms of diminishing black dots that were the
space-ships were still above but they were receding no longer! They
seemed growing larger! Something, memory of thought, crashed like
thunder through my brain. The control that Zat Zanat had closed!
The control that made of this world a magnet of colossal power, and
that the creatures of darkness had used to draw into the cloud those
thousands of ships! And it was closed now!
"_The ships!_" Jhul Din cried madly. "_They're being drawn back to this
world!_"
"_Drawn back--and they're crashing--crashing!_"
For we but glimpsed the thousands of mighty ships growing greater above
us with terrific speed, whirling back broad-side in utter confusion
and broken masses, when with a prolonged roar of thundering crashes
they were smashing into the surface of the mighty magnet-world that
had drawn them back! The planet's surface shook and rolled beneath the
gigantic simultaneous concussion of those vast swarms of vessels that
it had drawn back with awful force toward it, and as we were flung from
our feet the world seemed riven by the vast metal masses crashing at
terrible speed into it, none striking the roof on which we were only by
grace of that fact that none had been directly over us.
For a terrible moment the giant thunder-roll of the crashing ships
split the air about us, and then as it lessened, the swaying of the
building beneath us subsided and we staggered to our feet.
Around us lay a world of annihilation and death, its surface, save
for an unharmed building here and there like our own, but one vast
plain of wreckage! The wreckage of the thousands of ships that would
have spread horror and death over all the galaxy; the wreckage that
held the dead and broken hordes of all the eyeless creatures; the
wreckage that marked the annihilation of their race and of all their
tremendous plans! And that annihilation had been brought on them at
the last by their own work, by the control that made of their world a
colossal magnet to draw all ships toward it. They had used it to draw
the galaxy's ships into the cloud, into their world's atmosphere to be
captured, but at the last it had been used to draw those ships with all
their hordes inside them back to this world, to crash into it and into
annihilation!
For moments Jhul Din and Korus Kan and Zat Zanat and I stared at
that scene of terrific death, and then, flinging open the great
magnet-control again, we were climbing into the waiting cruiser,
slamming its space-door shut. As we gained its pilot room I grasped the
wheel and controls, and as the generators throbbed beneath my touch I
shot the ship upward from that world of awful death and into the violet
glow over it, heading at mounting speed out and toward the violet
lightpoints that were the galaxy's stars. The glasses fell from our
tired eyes as we swayed there, and again the absolute darkness of the
great cloud was upon us; but I did not stop to replace them but held
the racing cruiser steady on its course at a speed terrific.
Out through the darkness of the cloud we were rushing almost in
moments, so great was our speed; for soon we shot abruptly out of its
stygian lightlessness into clear space once more, into clear view of
the galaxy's familiar stars. Even then, though, I did not slow our
racing ship, but with Jhul Din and Korus Kan and Zat Zanat slumped
beside me kept the cruiser racing straight onward--straight away from
the vast blackness diminishing in the heavens behind us, straight away
from the cosmic cloud which its people of darkness had thought to leave
but which would hold them now in silence and in death forever.
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