Now the giant central world beneath was no longer visible, as we raced upward and outward from it at terrific speed, and ahead loomed one of the three giant suns that lay about that world. We were leaping forward straight toward it, and in an instant it had broadened across the heavens to a stupendous disk of raging crimson fire, a thunderous, titanic sun into which we seemed inevitably doomed to plunge, but as it flared across the firmament before us Korus Kan swerved the controls, and we were flashing by it, past the red star's edge and on outward through the dying universe. Traveling at a speed that was all but suicidal to use inside any universe, thrumming on at all but our utmost velocity, we reeled outward through the throngs of dead and dying stars about us, while behind us at a speed that matched our own our ten pursuers came relentlessly on, with the five hundred-odd ships that we had seen rising from the serpent-city following us in turn.
Out-out-the minutes of that mad outward flight through the dying universe are but a confused, strange memory of a wild, awful race through the massed dead and dying stars that thronged thick about us, and between which we drove with such terrific swiftness that hardly could we glimpse them in passing save on our space-chart. On that chart I saw a close-massed cluster of dark suns full before us, saw the Antarian swing the ship lightning-like sidewise to avoid it, then sharply drive the controls back again as before us a crimson-flaming star about which turned countless worlds of the serpent-people loomed before us. Out-out-flashing crazily on past crimson sun and thundering dark-star, through the massed suns of great dead and dying clusters and past far-swinging planets, with the ten long ships behind clinging remorselessly to us-out-out-until far ahead there became visible across all the heavens before us the wavering pale blue light of the great vibration-wall that encircled this universe.
Out between the last of the dying universe's dark and dying suns we were racing, toward that mighty wall, and as we leapt forward I pointed toward it. "The space-forts!" I exclaimed. "Make for the opening between them, Korus Kan-and slacken speed a little."
Straight toward the two great metal structures set in the pale blue-shining wall we leapt, two huge fortresses of gleaming metal from whose narrow openings came brilliant white light, whose mighty death-beam tubes swung threateningly out toward the space between them, the single vibrationless opening in the vast and impenetrable vibration-wall. They had been warned, were ready for us, we knew, and knew too that not even by a miracle could our ship run between those towering forts without coming under the deadly beams, yet still toward them we leapt, at a speed slackened a little, now, while after us like leaping things of prey came the ten ships, rapidly overhauling us, flashing closer each moment.
We had almost reached the great opening in the wall, now, the ten ships behind almost upon us, and as we flashed through space the whole scene was like one from some weird dream-the thronging dark and dying suns of the great universe behind us, the tremendous, all but invisible, pale blue wall of light that enclosed it, the single opening in that wall full before us, guarded on either side by the mighty metal space-forts, the great ships leaping after us just behind. We were flashing into the narrow opening-from the great space-forts to right and left the deadly death-beams were stabbing out toward us in scores, in hundreds-the ships behind were almost upon us, their own death-beams stabbing toward us-and then I cried a single word to Korus Kan. He thrust the controls suddenly forward with a lightning-like move, and just as our ship was flashing into the narrow opening it dipped sharply downward instead and plummeted down through space while the ships just behind, before they could dip with us, had rushed into the opening and into the hell of death-beams that crossed and recrossed in it from the space-forts on each side.
The next instant, while we curved swiftly upward again, we saw the ten ships that had rushed into that opening whirling blindly about as the death-beams from their own space-forts seared through them and wiped out all life inside them. Those in the great space-forts, realizing those ten to be their own ships, had turned off the beams in the next moment but were an instant too late, since in the narrow opening the ten ships were whirling crazily to that side and this, without guiding intelligence inside them, smashing into each other and into the space-forts on each side as they rushed insanely in all directions. And even as that wild confusion inside the opening was at its height our own ship had curved up and was flashing at full speed into the opening, between the space-forts.
For an instant, in that wild chaos of whirling ships, those in the space-forts did not glimpse our own flying ship and in that instant we were half through the great opening between them. Then they had seen us, had loosed their beams upon us in scores, and in the next instant all about us seemed a single tremendous melee of aimlessly whirling ships, and gigantic space-forts, and pale death-beams that sliced and swept about us. Thick about us flashed those ghostly fingers of death, and full before us two of the whirling ships collided and smashed with terrific force, then Korus Kan had dodged them by a swift shifting of the controls, our generators roared suddenly louder as he turned on our utmost speed, and the crazy chaos of ships and beams and forts about us had suddenly vanished, replaced by darkness and silence unutterable.
We were through, were racing out into the void again with the great vibration-wall and the dying universe it enclosed and the pursuing serpent-ships inside it dropping farther behind each moment. In the blackness that encircled us the dying universe was a far-flung, dwindling glow behind us, and our own a far patch of misty light to the left, but there shone in the darkness far ahead a misty disk of radiant light, and it was toward this that our ship was heading. For we were flashing out again upon our interrupted mission, were flying out through the awful gulf of outer space once more toward the Andromeda universe.
10: Flight and Pursuit
"Through the vibration-wall." I cried, as our ship raced out at utmost speed. "Out of the serpent-universe-and we may yet get to the Andromeda universe in time."
The eyes of Jhul Din and Korus Kan were as aflame with excitement as my own, at that moment, and from beneath came the triumphant shouts of our followers. There remained of the latter hardly more than a bare score, I knew-few enough to handle the great ship, but the control and operation of it were so simple that by standing alternate watches we could hold our course through space. Briefly I explained this to Korus Kan, he nodding assent, when from Jhul Din there came a cry that caused both of us to spin around toward him in swift alarm. The big Spican's eyes were fixed upon the space-chart above, and as we turned he raised an arm toward it.
"The five hundred serpent-ships." he cried. "They've come out through the great wall too-they're after us."
The blood in my veins seemed to chill with sudden renewal of our former tenseness and terror, as on the space-chart we saw, racing out after us from the dying universe, the five hundred-odd serpent-ships that had risen from the giant central world to pursue us, and that now, undeterred by the fate of the ten ships we had lured to destruction, were speeding out into the great void after us. Moments they had been delayed, apparently, by the confusion and chaos there in the opening between the space-forts, but though in those moments we had flashed far ahead their close-massed ships came on after us at their topmost speed-a great pursuit that they were carrying out into the void between the universes.
"They'll pursue us to the bitter end." I exclaimed, my eyes on the chart. "They'll go to any length rather than let us get to the Andromeda universe."
I wheeled about, my eyes seeking our speed-dials. Already we were traveling through the void at our own highest velocity, a full ten million light-speeds, but the shining mass of the Andromeda universe seemed infinitely distant in the blackness ahead, with that swift, relentless pursuit behind us. A moment more and Jhul Din strode out of the pilot room down to the great, throbbing generators beneath, striving to gain from them a fraction more of speed. For now was beginning, we knew, the most bitter of all chases, a stern chase with vast abysses of space lying between us and the universe that was our goal, and with the five hundred flying craft of the serpent-creatures close behind.