Part 2

"You are commanded to go!" the mechanism answered. "You are ordered to take that message to your galaxy's peoples."

"Very well, we will go," I answered. To our followers I said, "Back to the cruiser."

* * * * *

We strode across the circle with the hosts of machines around it still motionless, watching. As coolly as possible we entered the ship and slammed shut the space-door. I climbed with my two officers to the bridge-room.

"Ascend at once," I ordered Jan Allon.

The generators hummed and our craft rose rapidly from the dark-star's surface. Around us rose the flying-mechanisms, too.

"They're seeing us off to make sure we don't attempt any attack," I said. "These machines leave nothing to chance."

"Dur Nal, what will come of all this?" cried Jhul Din as our cruiser rose. "Can those mechanical things actually steal suns from our galaxy?"

"They can do it unless we are able to stop them," I said thoughtfully. "And whether or not we shall be able to stop them, I don't know."

"Why, if we gather all the Patrol together we ought to be able to beam them and their cursed dark stars out of space!" Jhul Din exclaimed.

"We'll do our best, anyway," I said grimly.

"The flying-mechanisms are dropping back, sir," reported Jan Allon.

We had risen high above the onrushing dark stars, and the machines that had accompanied us were now descending.

In a short time we were millions of miles above the twenty dead suns, and we soon made contact with our squadron, which had been hovering overhead.

"We return toward the galaxy at full speed immediately," I ordered the ships of our squadron.

As our ships put on speed we soon left the dark stars behind us, outracing them toward the galaxy.

I took the space-phone and after a little difficulty got through to headquarters at Canopus. In a few moments I was talking to the Chief.

Lacq Larus listened with utmost attention as I related what we had discovered concerning the dark stars and the purposes of the machine-things guiding them.

"This is almost incredible!" replied Lacq Larus' voice when I had finished. "Cosmic buccaneers coming from another galaxy to steal suns from our own galaxy!"

"It is incredible but true," I told him. "They will reach our galaxy within a short time and will start dragging away suns."

"You believe that they can do this, Dur Nal?" he asked.

"I am almost sure that they can," I answered. "These machines impressed me as being the most formidable creatures I've ever encountered. Korus Kan is of my opinion also."

"Well, we're not going to stand tamely by and let them rob us of any of our suns," said Lacq Larus, a steely quality in his voice. "Dur Nal, when you reach the galaxy's edge stand by there with your squadron and keep watch for the coming of these dark stars. I'll call up every cruiser in the Interstellar Patrol and order them to rendezvous off Betelgeuse. We'll join up with you there to combat these machines and their worlds."

"One more thing, sir," I added quickly. "What if we are unable to prevent these machines from taking twenty of our suns?"

"You don't think they will prove too strong for us, do you?" Lacq Larus asked.

"I have been strongly impressed by the powers of these mechanisms," I answered. "I suggest that the worlds of all suns in that section at the galaxy's edge be evacuated of their inhabitants so that if the suns are taken, the inhabitants will be safe."

After a moment's silence he said, "Very well, Dur Nal. I'll give orders for the evacuation to take place."

* * * * *

During the next hours our squadron raced at top speed toward the galaxy's edge. The dark stars faded from sight behind us, but we knew that they were still there, still rushing steadily on toward our galaxy.

By the time we reached Betelgeuse the whole galaxy was aflame with news of the coming of these cosmic corsairs, who meant to plunder us of part of our suns. Despite this excitement there was no panic.

Lacq Larus was on his way from Canopus with the thousand cruisers of the Interstellar Patrol that had been at headquarters. And in response to his commands, flashed across the whole galaxy, every fighting-ship in the Patrol was making for Betelgeuse.

Yes, from every part of the galaxy they were coming, those lean, long hawks of space, from the great trade-routes between the bigger suns, from lonely regions in uncharted parts of the galaxy. Rushing at reckless speed through the perils of the void, the ships of the Interstellar Patrol came in answer to their Chief's call.

Meanwhile all the worlds of the suns in the threatened section at the galaxy's edge were being swiftly evacuated of their inhabitants. Interstellar liners and freighters in hundreds of thousands swarmed from those worlds to suns back in the galaxy, carrying their whole populations to suns and worlds more safe.

Out beside great Betelgeuse, at the galaxy's very edge, I lay waiting with my squadron. My ships still maintained their triangular formation. We had climbed several light-years above the plane of the threatened suns and now lay in the void, Jhul Din and Korus Kan and I watching intently through our instruments as the dark stars in the outer void rushed toward us. Nearer and nearer they came, still flying on in a compact group.

"They're beginning to slow down," muttered Jhul Din, watching. "If Lacq Larus and the rest of the Patrol don't show up soon, they'll be too late."

"Here they come now!" exclaimed Korus Kan.

We turned and saw racing toward us thousands on thousands of shining points that became cruisers as they neared us. Foremost among them flew the flagship of Lacq Larus, and the Chief's craft drew up close beside our own.

"Almost the whole strength of the Patrol is here, Dur Nal," Lacq Larus told me on the space-phone. "What about the dark stars?"

"They're almost here too," I said grimly. "You can see them out there."

There was silence as Lacq Larus and all the rest in our fleet peered toward those twenty onrushing giant globes.

"They're almost here, sir," I said. "What are your orders for attack?"

"We'll divide into twenty divisions, one to attack each of those dark stars," Lacq Larus ordered. "Each division will descend on its objective and beam everything upon it as heavily as possible, trying especially to destroy the controls of the propulsion-apparatus."

"We will not attack until they actually start dragging away suns. For if they find themselves unable to seize any of our suns as they plan, they will no doubt return to their own galaxy and there will be no need of combat."

We watched, therefore, without making a move as the score of dark stars drew nearer.

The scene was a thrilling one: the hosts of the galaxy's shining suns stretching away behind us; the myriad cruisers of our great fleet lying motionless up there high above the outermost suns; the twenty huge black stars booming nearer on their ruthless mission of intergalactic piracy.

The dark stars were now at the galaxy's edge, and there they separated. Each of them moved toward one of the suns below, and each selected a hot, youthful sun of large or medium size. Directly under my own ship we could see one of the dark stars approaching a blue sun, curving smoothly in toward it.

"It can't be done!" Jhul Din exclaimed tautly. "Nothing can drag a sun away!"

"But they're doing it!" cried Korus Kan. "Look at that!"

The dark star had come very close to the blue sun, and now from its surface a broad, pale beam of immense magnitude stabbed toward the sun.

For a few moments they remained thus, dark star and sun connected by that beam. Then the dark star began to move slowly away under the influence of its propulsion-apparatus, and the blue sun moved slowly after it!

"They're doing it!" repeated Korus Kan. "They're towing that sun away!"

"And look--all the other dark stars are dragging away suns!" cried the astounded Jhul Din.

* * * * *

It was an astounding, an awful spectacle--those robber dark stars of the machines making away with twenty of our suns.

Lacq Larus' voice snapped at that moment from the space-phone. Our fleet divided into twenty subdivisions, each with one of the dark stars as its objective. Then came the order to attack.

Down, down--like swooping hawks of space our cruisers rushed headlong down through the millions of miles toward the dark stars towing away their helpless prey. And up from each of the dark stars to meet us, as though they had only been awaiting our attack, darted hosts of the disk-like flying-mechanisms.

There was a hell of cosmic struggle then over the twenty dark stars. So appalling was the inferno of that battle that I lost all sense of the individual part our ship took in it.

I was aware of Jhul Din and Korus Kan yelling hoarsely beside me as the beams of our ships stabbed and smashed through the masses of the darting flying-machines. Then I saw brilliant filaments of blue force emitted from the flying-mechanisms toward our cruisers, saw every cruiser touched by them explode instantly into blue light. Ships and flying-mechanisms went to death by hundreds in space all around us. Our cruisers still strove to smash down through the machines to the surface of the dark stars. For even while this wild combat went on above them, the dark stars were still steadily towing their captive suns on out into space.

The flying-mechanisms outnumbered us two to one, and despite our wild efforts we could not get through them to the worlds beneath. And more and more of our ships were exploding in azure light as the filaments of force found a mark.

Three-quarters of our force had been destroyed and it looked as though the rest of us would be wiped out in a few minutes, when there came an order from the Chief.

"All ships break off fighting and ascend!" ordered Lacq Larus.

What cruisers were left us at once disengaged from the struggle and darted upward.

The flying-mechanisms pursued us but we beamed them so savagely from above that they dropped back.

We climbed two light-years before Lacq Larus gave our shattered forces the order to halt and resume formation.

"The machines have destroyed all but a quarter of our ships," he said. "They outnumber us, and to continue the battle is only to invite complete destruction."

"But, sir, we can't let them take those twenty suns away!" cried one of the captains on the space-phone.

"I'm afraid we'll have to this time," Lacq Larus said. "But they will be coming back for more suns, and the next time we will be ready for them."

"But, sir----" protested another officer, and was cut short by the Chief's grim voice.

"I know how you of the Patrol feel at thus letting them take those suns away. But we can do no good by sacrificing ourselves at this time, and must have all the forces available to meet them when they come again. We will return into the galaxy, except for two scouting-divisions which will remain and keep watch along the edge."

Grimly, with bitter thoughts, our shattered forces moved back into the galaxy, leaving the patrolling force behind.

"Beaten!" Jhul Din exclaimed unbelievingly. "The Interstellar Patrol, beaten by those machines!"

"We're not completely beaten, Jhul Din," I told him. "They've won the first round, but when they come back again it will be a different story."

"But we've let them take twenty of our suns away from us," he said, "as easily as though we weren't there at all!"

* * * * *

When our remaining forces re-entered the galaxy we found it in uproar. News of the success of the machine-corsairs in robbing us of twenty suns had already flashed everywhere across it. It was known that the machines would return for more suns, and in view of what had happened it seemed probable that they could loot our galaxy of as many suns as they wished.

Lacq Larus broadcast a statement to allay the general fear.

"The machines greatly outnumbered our forces and for that reason we were unable to prevent them from towing away twenty suns," he stated. "But they will without doubt return to plunder us of more suns, and before then we must construct as many ships as possible with which to meet them. If we have forces enough we should be able to prevent the theft of any more suns."

Preparations were begun almost at once to build up sufficient forces to meet the cosmic corsairs on their return. Thousands on thousands of new Patrol cruisers were hastily laid down to replace those destroyed in the battle. Beams of greater range and power were installed in them.

It was estimated that we would have twice as many ships to meet the next coming of the corsairs as when we first had combated them. We would be meeting them on something like even terms as to numbers.

"By the suns, we'll blast them out of space when they show up next time!" Jhul Din vowed.

Korus Kan was not so sure. "Their weapons are more powerful than our own," he reminded.

* * * * *

Our new ships were hardly completed when there came warning of the corsairs' return.

Our astronomers had watched them closely as they towed our score of suns steadily across the void toward their own distant galaxy. Now the astronomers reported that the twenty dark stars were on their way back to our galaxy.

Lacq Larus ordered a patrol far out into space in the direction of the oncoming corsairs. Our main forces remained just inside the galaxy's edge. All worlds of suns there had been evacuated.

Soon came word from the patrol that the dark stars were close. Lacq Larus ordered our scouts not to engage but to keep just ahead of them.

Again Jhul Din and Korus Kan and I looked down from a great height at the oncoming dead suns of the buccaneering machines. They swept steadily, purposefully, toward our galaxy's edge again, but this time Lacq Larus did not wait for them to attach themselves to suns. He ordered the attack at once.

If our first battle with the machines had been wild, our second one was madness. The flying-mechanisms still outnumbered our ships slightly, and they fought like the machines they were, with cold, relentless purpose.

And as they fought with us, the dark stars on which they had come were being directed smoothly toward our suns, hooking onto a sun each with their great attraction-beams, and starting again to tow these suns out into the void.

At this sight, Lacq Larus flashed an order to us. "Try above all to get down and cripple the propulsion-apparatus of those dark stars! If we don't, they'll get away with these suns too!"

"They're getting away with them now!" groaned Jhul Din. "Curse them, if they were only living creatures instead of machines we might be able to beat them!"

Already a third of our forces were gone, and at Lacq Larus' new order we spent our ships at an appalling rate to wing down and disable the dirigible dark stars.

It was in vain. The flying-mechanisms kept always between us and the dark stars below. And steadily as the wild battle raged above them, those dark stars were dragging away their second capture of suns.

One only did our forces manage to disable. There had been a break in the battle above it for a moment, and through that break two Patrol cruisers cometed down instantly and crashed deliberately into the controls of that world. At once that dark star slowed and drifted rudderless in space, circling aimlessly with the sun it had been towing away. The machines deserted it and darted on to help protect the other nineteen that were dragging their suns onward.

We followed those nineteen dark stars and their prey fiercely out into space, never ceasing our attacks. Two-thirds of our force was annihilated before Lacq Larus gave over the attack. The machines had again had much the best of it and now outnumbered us by an even greater margin.

His voice was heavy as he gave the order that signified our defeat. "All ships return toward the galaxy."

We were silent as our remnant of ships returned.

"It's no good," said Korus Kan finally. "The machines are stronger than we are, and though we'll fight them when they come again, they'll take our suns despite us."

"We'll stop them somehow," Jhul Din asserted. "The Patrol has met a lot of enemies in its time and beaten them, and it will beat these cursed mindless things of metal."

"I confess that I don't see how it can be done," I answered him. "We've met them twice now and each time they've defeated us."

Lacq Larus' voice came to me shortly on the space-phone. "Dur Nal, land your ship on that disabled dark star," he said. "I want to examine it with you."

* * * * *

I gave the pilot the order and we detached ourselves from the rest of the fleet and headed toward the dark star. It still drifted aimlessly outside the galaxy's edge, it and the sun it had been towing away when crippled now circling each other.

When we landed on it beside the ship of Lacq Larus and emerged in space-suits we found the dark-star's surface held only some wrecks of machines that had been shattered by our beams. No living or moving machine was left upon that world.

Lacq Larus led toward the huge panel and levers the two down-crashing cruisers had wrecked. "I want to examine the controls of this thing," he said.

Jhul Din was looking at the fragments of machines around us with some little satisfaction. "At least some of them knew they met up with us," he said.

We came to the shattered controls and examined them closely. Korus Kan was especially interested.

"These dark stars are propelled by great generators of propulsion-vibrations, as I thought," he said. "The beams they use to pull suns away are simply attractive rays of immense power released from a huge projector."

"So that's how they do it," Lacq Larus said. "Well, I'm afraid it makes small difference to us how they do it, as long as they continue to do it."

But I clutched Korus Kan's arm. A sudden thought had entered my brain with his words.

"Korus Kan, could the scientists of our galaxy duplicate this propulsion-apparatus and attractive beam?" I cried.

He looked at me, puzzled. "I suppose so. I don't see why not when the principle is clear."

"And we could install them in dark stars just as the machines did?" I pressed.

"Yes, that would not be hard. But why do you ask, Dur Nal?"

"Because I've found a way to get back our stolen suns and whip those machines once and for all!" I cried.

"What do you mean, Dur Nal?" asked Lacq Larus quickly.

Swiftly I explained. "Suppose we take a hundred of the dark stars in our galaxy and fit them with propulsion-apparatus and attraction-beams like this one. Then suppose we sail across space with those hundred dark stars to the galaxy of the machines and----"

"And take our suns back from them!" cried Korus Kan, his eyes blazing. "If we can do it----"

"By the suns, we _can_ do it!" cried Jhul Din. "It's a way to get back our stolen suns and smash the machine-people!"

"Dur Nal, you may have found the right answer," Lacq Larus told me. "The thing you propose is stupendous, but it seems to be the only course open to us to win."

"We'll assemble all the scientists and workers in the galaxy if necessary to get this done," he added.

Within hours, the hastily summoned scientists of our galaxy had pronounced our plan practicable, and preparations had begun.

Swiftly cruisers of the Interstellar Patrol went forth and located a hundred dark stars of the dimensions needed. There are hosts of such dead suns booming along in the galaxy's spaces, and it was not hard to find a hundred of suitable size.

Meanwhile all the scientific ability of the galaxy had been thrown into the manufacture of huge generators and propulsion and attractive vibrations.

In an incredibly short time these were completed and transported to the hundred selected dark stars. They were installed so that the dark stars could be propelled in space at great speed in any direction, and could fasten onto and tow any sun or body of stellar size. Giant defensive beam-batteries were also installed.

When the first dark star was so equipped I gave it its tests. Standing with Korus Kan and Jhul Din at its controls, and with Lacq Larus watching beside us, I turned on the power.

The huge dead sun moved away through space in perfect answer to its controls. I speeded it up, slowed it, turned sharply and circled it around a few suns to make sure of its tractability.

Then we tried the attractive beam. Korus Kan handled the controls of this, and with it we hooked onto a medium-size sun. Then as I started our dark star forward through space again we found that we towed the sun steadily along with us.

"It's successful!" Lacq Larus exclaimed. "And all the others will be ready soon!"

"As soon as they're ready we'll start for the galaxy of the machines," he said, "before they've time to come back here again."

Rapidly the others of the hundred dark stars were equipped and tested. Lacq Larus took one as the flagship of the stupendous fleet.

At his order we drove our dark-star chariot outside the galaxy's edge and there the whole hundred massed together.

We formed in columns of ten, the dark star of Lacq Larus taking a position a little ahead of the rest of us.

Then Lacq Larus gave an order on the space-phones which had been fitted to all our worlds, and as one our fleet of a hundred dark stars began to move through space toward the soft, hazy patch of light that was the distant galaxy of the machines. Our caravan was on its way to retrieve our stolen suns, in the mightiest venture yet undertaken by the Interstellar Patrol.

* * * * *

Jhul Din was exultant. "By the suns, this is better than driving ships!" he exclaimed. "Driving dark stars to battle!"

"There'll be all the battle you want when we reach the galaxy of the machines," I told him grimly.

"You're going to follow out our original plan?" I asked Lacq Larus on the space-phone, and he answered in the affirmative.

"It's a risky one, but I believe it is the best one."

We hurtled on in the void toward the distant galaxy of the machines. Slowly, very slowly despite our immense speed, it grew in apparent size. It grew from a little patch of light to a cloud of tiny points of light. And as it grew, our own galaxy shrank astern.

Korus Kan and Jhul Din and I relieved each other at the controls of the dark star. We kept our place in the general formation, the dark star of Lacq Larus still leading. There was something magnificent and awful in this cosmic march of our hundred dead suns through space to retrieve our stolen suns and take vengeance on those who had stolen them.