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 though 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 that 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 surprised 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 instant 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.