Part 1

Corsairs of the Cosmos

By EDMOND HAMILTON

_A stupendous story of the Interstellar Patrol--an amazing weird-scientific tale of an invasion from outside the universe._

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Weird Tales April 1934. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

"What was the greatest adventure that you ever took part in during your service in the Interstellar Patrol?"

That is a question which I, Dur Nal, captain in the Patrol, and my two officers are often asked.

My own answer is: "I believe our space-fight with the serpent-people was the wildest adventure ever we had."

Korus Kan, my first officer, disagrees: "It was the time that we were drawn into the dark nebula."

And Jhul Din, my big second officer, differs with both of us and says, "That time we penetrated inside a comet was by far the most venturous."

To settle this difference of opinion I once put the question to Lacq Larus, Chief of the Interstellar Patrol.

Lacq Larus knew of every venture we of the service had ever engaged upon. He considered for a long time before he answered me.

"Dur Nal," he told me finally, "I think that the time we fought the cosmic corsairs was the wildest any of us ever saw."

And looking back, I am not sure but that Lacq Larus is right. For certainly that was the maddest space-struggle in which even the oldest veterans of the Patrol ever took part.

My cruiser had just returned to headquarters at Canopus when the thing first burst upon us. Our ship had been engaged for long weeks patrolling a lonely section of the galaxy beyond Mira, policing space between the suns and seeing that law was maintained in the interstellar void.

We had been glad enough when our relief came and we could return to headquarters. At full speed we flew across the galaxy between suns and nebulæ until at last we were watching Canopus' worlds come out of the huge white sun's glare as our cruiser swept in toward them.

But our stay at headquarters was to be short. For when I went up into the great tower that holds the central authority of the Interstellar Patrol, and reported our return to Lacq Larus, the Chief, I found that a new assignment awaited us.

"Dur Nal, I'm sorry to send you right back out into space," Lacq Larus told me, "but there's a job to be done."

"What is it, sir?" I asked. "A little meteor-sweeping to be done?"

"No, the space-routes of the galaxy are all clear at the moment," the Chief answered. "But I've just had a report from the astronomers at Betelgeuse that a number of celestial bodies are approaching our galaxy from outer space. They report that there are about twenty of these bodies, that they are non-luminous and are apparently a group of dark stars. They are approaching with phenomenal speed and will reach our galaxy at a point near Betelgeuse."

"And you want us to go out and investigate these oncoming dark stars?" I guessed as he paused.

Lacq Larus nodded. "Yes. I want you to take a squadron of cruisers and go out into outer space to meet them. You will ascertain the exact course and speed of these dark stars and determine accurately where and when they will enter our galaxy. Then return here at once with your report."

I saluted. "Very well, sir. If the cruisers are ready we'll start at once."

"The squadron is waiting for you now down in the docks," Lacq Larus said. And he called after me as I went out, "I'll see that you get the leave due you when you return."

* * * * *

I went down to the great docks beside the tower, in which were resting or refitting hundreds of ships of the Interstellar Patrol. Most numerous among them were the long, cigar-shaped cruisers, the swiftest ships in space, grim beam-tubes projecting from their sides.

There were also slower, broader-beamed meteor-sweeps; observation ships fitted with elaborate instruments; heat-cruisers such as are used for close work with nebulæ and suns; and representatives of all the other classes of ships in the Patrol.

I found the squadron of twenty-five cruisers assigned me, waiting with all officers and crews aboard. Then I went on to my own cruiser and as I neared the dock where it rested I saw beside it a small crowd of Patrol officers listening to some one discoursing in a loud voice. As I drew nearer I saw that the speaker was a big, bulky figure and recognized him as Jhul Din, my second officer.

Beside him, listening in some amusement, was Korus Kan, my first officer, and the other officers were hanging on his words.

"----and we ran our ship at full speed right through that meteor-swarm!" Jhul Din was saying. "We went so fast that not a cursed meteor in the whole swarm ever touched us."

"But weren't you afraid to head your cruiser into a meteor-swarm like that?" asked a young officer.

Jhul Din stared at him. "Afraid? You won't know what it is to be afraid when you've spent as much time out in space as I have."

"Well, you're going to spend a little more time in space right now," I broke in. "Jhul Din, call the crew to stations at once."

He looked at me in dismay. "You don't mean that we're going out on patrol again, Dur Nal? Not when we've just come in?"

"We're going out again, but not on patrol," I told him, and informed them briefly of the mission Lacq Larus had assigned to us.

"Why did the Chief have to pick on us?" Jhul Din exclaimed. "Look how long it'll take us to go outside the galaxy far enough to meet those dark stars."

"Well, it can't be helped," I said as we entered the cruiser. "The sooner you quit complaining and we get started, the sooner we'll be back."

He left us, still grumbling, and I heard his deep voice calling the crew to their posts as Korus Kan and I climbed to the cruiser's bridge-room.

"Is everything in order for a start?" I asked Korus Kan and he saluted.

"Everything in order--all generators and projectors satisfactory, air-tanks and supply-rooms full, all beam-tubes working."

"Very well," I said, and picked up the space-phone by which I could communicate with the other cruisers of my squadron.

"Dur Nal speaking--we will start in five minutes," I ordered. "Triangle formation, and keep at two light-speeds until we clear Canopus."

As the captains of the other cruisers responded their understanding, I turned to the pilot who had just come up into the bridge-room. "Start in four minutes, Jan Allon," I ordered. "Lay our course for Betelgeuse for the present."

I heard Jhul Din bellow an order down below and the space-doors clanged shut. Then the whining hum of the great generators in the lower deck began.

Jan Allon waited for a few moments, then threw on the power and pulled the cruiser's wheel slightly toward him. Our ship arrowed up at once into the sunlight, the other cruisers following close behind in the familiar triangle formation of the Patrol.

In a short time our squadron was clear of Canopus, and with the huge sun glaring behind us like a great white eye we were racing across the galaxy's spaces at many light-speeds toward Betelgeuse. We followed the straightest possible course, and this took us past the Orion nebula, which lies almost directly on the space-route between Canopus and Betelgeuse. The nebula bulked for billions of miles in space beside us, a stupendous burning cloud along whose edge our comparatively tiny cruiser crawled.

* * * * *

Once the mighty nebula was behind us, it was not long before our squadron reached Betelgeuse and the galaxy's edge. There was no need for us to halt at Betelgeuse; so we passed that sun and in a short time were passing clear out of the galaxy into outer space.

Behind us lay the galaxy, a colossal swarm of suns floating in the infinitude of space. Before us lay only space itself, vast, lightless, empty. Far, far across its unthinkable reaches glowed a few little patches of soft, hazy light, galaxies as large as our own but so far away they were hardly visible.

Out in space some distance from our galaxy we could descry with our instruments a group of dark bodies coming toward us. They were the score of dark stars approaching the galaxy from the outer emptiness. Our squadron headed right out into the infinite toward them.

Korus Kan took observations on the dark stars as we approached them, while Jhul Din and I watched.

He found that they were all of large size and that they were coming on with astounding speed.

"They're moving faster than any dark star I ever heard of before!" Korus Kan told us.

"That's all the better," Jhul Din grunted. "We'll meet them the sooner and can get back sooner into the galaxy."

We watched as the black globes of the oncoming dark stars became dimly visible in the blackness ahead. Then I gave an order for the squadron to slacken speed.

"When we meet the dark stars we'll turn and move above them and with them, back toward the galaxy," I directed, "long enough to investigate them."

In a short time the dark stars had grown to huge black worlds booming toward us close ahead.

We ascended to a higher level and prepared to turn and follow above them when they reached us. They came on with truly amazing velocity, those mighty burned-out cinders that long ago had been suns.

From what far region of space had they come, I wondered? How came these dark wanderers to be rushing through outer space far from whatever galaxy had been their origin? What chance had led them through infinity toward our own galaxy?

Musing on this, I watched as our squadron passed close over the group, executed a broad turn, and then came back and flew above the dark stars toward the galaxy.

Now we were almost stupefied to find that they were moving through space nearly half as fast as our swift ships could move!

"By all the suns, this is incredible!" I cried. "These dark stars are moving faster than any celestial body was ever known to move!"

Korus Kan's eyes were excited. "There's something strange about this whole business! Wait and I'll take some observations."

As he trained his instruments on the hurtling worlds below, Jhul Din and I stared down at them in increasing amazement.

"Maybe there has been a cosmic convulsion in some other galaxy that hurled these dead suns into outer space," Jhul Din suggested.

"Even that wouldn't account for their tremendous velocity," I was saying, when Korus Kan interrupted.

"By the suns, it's as I suspected!" he cried. "Those dark stars are propelled by artificial power!"

We turned our stare on him. "What are you saying?"

"It's the truth!" Korus Kan affirmed. "Our instruments show that they are being impelled through space by super-powerful propulsion vibrations like those that impel our ships! It means that the dark stars have been fitted with huge generators and projectors and controls, and are being driven through space like so many colossal ships!"

"It can't be!" Jhul Din exclaimed incredulously. "Whoever heard of dead suns the size of those being propelled artificially?"

But rapidly I was thinking. "I believe that Korus Kan is right," I said. "And if these dark stars are really being propelled deliberately through space, it means that there are living creatures of some kind on them directing their flight."

"Why have they steered their twenty worlds across the outer void toward our galaxy? Where have they come from and for what?" Jhul Din asked.

"We must learn the answer to these questions and report to headquarters. This matter may be of import to our whole galaxy."

"Shall we descend and land on one of those dark stars to investigate, then?" asked Jhul Din.

Quickly I considered. "There's no need to imperil our whole squadron," I said.

I grasped the space-phone and spoke to the other ships. "It appears that these twenty dark stars are being deliberately propelled toward our galaxy, no doubt by beings of some sort upon them," I stated. "Our cruiser is going to descend to investigate. All others of the squadron will remain at their present level, and if we do not rejoin you within two hours you will return at full speed toward the galaxy and report what has happened at headquarters."

From the captains of the other cruisers came assent to the order, and then I turned to the pilot. "Very well, Jan Allon--descend toward the foremost of the dark stars."

* * * * *

In tense silence Korus Kan and Jhul Din and I watched as our cruiser shot down through space toward the first of the onrushing dead suns. What would we find there? We waited in taut anticipation as the ship dropped down through the millions of miles.

Presently Korus Kan spoke. "None of the dark stars seems to have any atmospheric halo," he said.

"What kind of creatures could exist on worlds without atmosphere?" Jhul Din marvelled.

The foremost dark-star's surface rushed up toward us. We saw on it crowded movement, a stir of hosts of moving things.

"There's life of some kind down there, all right," said Jhul Din.

Then as our ship raced lower an exclamation of utter astonishment came from me. "Life? This isn't a world of life as we know it. It's a world of machines!"

For the moving things that existed in hosts on the dark star were all machines!

The twilight surface of the star was crowded with their numbers. There were towering machines that stalked to and fro; many-limbed mechanisms such as I had never seen; and dozens of other kinds.

The eye could not count them, so great were their numbers. There was no other life or moving things in sight. Here was mystery of the cosmos, dark, enigmatic. How came the active and apparently masterless machines to be peopling these dirigible worlds?

"By the suns, there must be people of some kind here!" exclaimed Jhul Din. "If not, who made these machines?"

Korus Kan uttered a sharp cry. "Dur Nal! Some of the machines are coming up toward us!"

A hundred or more mechanisms had risen from the dark star and were flying swiftly up through space toward us.

These mechanisms had no occupants, no operators. They were simply masterless machines flying in space, disk-like in shape and with tubes much like beam-tubes projecting from them.

"They may be going to attack us," Jhul Din warned. "Shall we beam them?"

"No--don't loose a single beam," I commanded. "There are a hundred of them to our one."

The flying-mechanisms came rapidly up, swarmed in a crowd around our descending cruiser. There was something chilling and uncanny at the sight of the metal machines acting with apparent volition and intelligence. They seemed watching us, but made no move to attack us. I had a lively sense, though, that they were only waiting for an untoward movement on our part to leap upon us.

"Keep descending," I told the pilot. "They're not going to harm us at present, apparently."

"There's a clear space down there to the left that looks like the center of activities, sir," the pilot reported to me.

"Land there, then," I directed.

The spot on the dark-star's surface toward which we now descended was a clear circle surrounded by hosts of machines. As our ship slanted down toward it, with the flying-mechanisms keeping in a close swarm around us, I turned.

"Jhul Din, order every one in the ship to don space-suits," I commanded. "There is no atmosphere on this world."

* * * * *

Jan Allon turned to me and saluted. "We have landed, sir."

"I am going to emerge. Korus Kan and Jhul Din and five of the crew will accompany me," I said. "The rest will remain in the cruiser and in case of accident to us will attempt to escape with the ship."

With my two officers I went down from the bridge-room to the lower deck.

"Open the space-door," I ordered.

The heavy door swung, and with Jhul Din and Korus Kan and our five followers I stepped out onto the dark-star's surface.

We looked about us. We stood in an unimaginably weird and alien scene. A thick twilight lay over everything, but half-way up to the zenith in the black heavens glittered a great swarm of stars. It was our galaxy, toward which these dark-star worlds were rushing.

All around us in that twilight, surrounding with their hosts the clear circular space in which our cruiser had landed, towered the mighty machines. They were now motionless, as though they were watching us. With a chilling of my blood I knew that they _were_ watching us.

Across the circle from us loomed a huge panel, and beside it great levers and wheels. Near this stood a half-dozen curious, squat, cowled mechanisms resting each on three metal limbs.

Korus Kan touched my arm, whispered. "Dur Nal, that panel and the levers--they must be the controls by which this dark star is propelled and steered through space!"

"We'll go over toward them, then," I said. "If there's any center of authority, it will be there."

As we neared the huge controls a stir went through the machine-giants around the clearing, menacing, watchful.

"By the suns, these cursed machines are all _alive_!" muttered Jhul Din.

We stopped before the six cowled mechanisms that stood by the controls. Some instinct told me of power, of authority, concentrated in them.

Then out from one of those squat, cowled machines came a clear thought-message, impinging directly on my mind. The machine was speaking to us.

"You are inhabitants of the galaxy which our twenty dark stars are now approaching?" it asked.

"We are," I answered, projecting the thought toward it. "Are you machines the only inhabitants of these dark stars? It is you who are steering them toward our galaxy?"

"It is," the machine replied. "We come from one of the galaxies nearest in space to your own galaxy. And that one from which we come is a galaxy inhabited only by machines like ourselves."

"A whole galaxy peopled only by machines?" I said. "How can such a thing be?"

"It has been so for countless ages," the mechanism answered. "Long ago we machines came to power in that galaxy and we have retained it ever since."

"But how did these machines come into existence in the first place?" Korus Kan whispered, beside me.

The cowled mechanism must have caught his thought. "In our galaxy in the far past," it told us, "there existed a race of beings who were not mechanisms but were living things similar to yourselves. They constructed many and diverse machines to aid in their conquest of nature, and they made those machines ever more automatic and self-sufficient. Finally they devised mechanisms that possessed a mechanical brain-structure capable of memory and association and decision, machines that could think. These thinking machines soon came to be superior in capabilities to their living creators. With unerring logic they recognized this fact and saw themselves better fitted to rule than their creators. So they rebelled against those who had made them and destroyed them all.

"Since then we machines have ruled supreme and alone in that galaxy and long ago spread out to every part of it and now are masters of all its suns and worlds."

"A machine-race rebelling against its creators!" Jhul Din exclaimed incredulously. "And these metal monsters rule a whole galaxy!"

"Quiet, Jhul Din!" I ordered. "We've got to find out what they've come to our own galaxy for."

I projected another thought at the cowled master-machines before me. "How come you machines to be propelling these dark stars toward our galaxy?"

The mechanism's thought-answer came. "We took twenty dark stars in our galaxy, fitted them with propulsion-apparatus and other apparatus, and then steered them out of our galaxy and across the gulf of space toward this galaxy of yours."

"But why did you do it?" I asked. "What have you come to our galaxy for?"

The machine's thought-answer came like a thunder-clap.

"We have come for suns!"

"For suns? What do you mean?"

The mechanism explained. "Our galaxy is much older than yours. A large number of its suns are old, red, dying. The worlds of our dying suns have been growing colder and colder. Upon many of them even we machines can no longer exist. We wish to get some new suns to replace the dying ones in our galaxy. We saw across space that your galaxy has many hot, young suns, and we have come to get some of them."

We were stupefied. "You are mad!" I said finally. "How could you hope to move suns from our galaxy to yours?"

"We can do it quite simply," the machine affirmed. "These dark stars can be propelled anywhere we wish and we need only approach a sun with one of them, project toward that sun a powerful attraction-beam such as we are equipped to produce, and then head our dark star back toward our galaxy dragging the sun with us."

I heard with increasing stupefaction. "And you've come with these twenty dark stars to rob us of twenty of our suns!"

"It's impossible!" Jhul Din exclaimed. "Not these machines or any one else could ever tow away suns like that!"

"It's not impossible," said Korus Kan tensely. "They can do it if they have such equipment as they say."

"We can do it, yes, and we mean to do it," the machine affirmed. "Already we approach your galaxy, and when we reach it each of our dark stars will attach itself to a sun and we will start back with these twenty suns toward our galaxy. We will return again for another twenty suns and will continue this until our galaxy has sufficient hot, young suns to keep all our worlds warm.

"If you do not oppose us, no one in your galaxy will be harmed and we will allow the worlds of the suns we choose time enough to be evacuated of their inhabitants. But if you do oppose us, you will find it useless, for we machines are mighty and no mere living creatures can hope to resist us. You will only sacrifice yourselves in attempting resistance."

[Illustration: "We machines are mighty. You will only sacrifice yourselves in attempting resistance."]

The cold, logical statement of the machine stung me to fury. "Do you imagine for a moment that we are going to allow you to come out of space and rob us of our suns at will?" I cried.

The mechanism's reply was completely unimpassioned. "You will gain nothing by resistance," it repeated. "When we have taken what suns we need, you will still have thousands of suns left."

"You'll take no suns at all from our galaxy!" I answered. "You'll find that we are not such powerless creatures as you machines imagine."

The cowled machine ignored my threat. "You will return to your galaxy," it told me, "and will tell your peoples what we have said. Make clear to them that if they do not resist us, no one will be harmed when we take the suns we need. But tell them also that if any of them oppose us we will annihilate them."

A burning resentment at this mechanical thing's cold arrogance welled in me, but I retained enough reason to choke it down.

"We are free to go, then?" I asked.