"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 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 into 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 the vast armada going out to spread death and destruction across our universe. Never could the galaxy's peoples of light stand against those dread peoples 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!