Part 3

For all my impatience I saw the wisdom of Jurt Tul's suggestion and so composed myself to a longer period of waiting. So hour followed hour while we crouched there in the great crack in the chasm's wall. Far above we could see the crimson coma, against which there came and went now and then divisions of cube-ships, still searching, searching for the fugitives who had escaped them. My thoughts turned to Gor Han and to Najus Nar, prisoned in the comet-city, and then to our own predicament. But hours remained now in which the comet might be turned aside, and unless we could escape from it, could meet the five thousand cruisers that were racing toward it from the galaxy and lead them inside, no power in all space and time could turn the comet aside from the galaxy. And I could not, would not, attempt to escape from the comet without having first learned the fate, at least, of Gor Han and Najus Nar.

At last I stood upright, turned to Jurt Tul. "The cube-ships above seem to have slackened their search," I told him, "and now's the time for our venture. We've had hours now of this dusk, and the light of their day may be turned on at any time."

He nodded, then pointed out that his cruiser had been damaged somewhat in the battle over the central world. So that it might not delay us we transferred his crew from it to the others, Jurt Tul entering my own cruiser with me, while the damaged one we left there on the cavern's shelf. Then, after we had closed our space-doors, our cruisers moved gently out of the narrow opening, rising swiftly up over the disk-world from the chasm's depths. That disk-world's surface lay beneath us, now, illumined by the coma's far crimson glow alone, a lurid luminescence that picked out streaks and veins of metal here and there in the jagged rock. It was plain, indeed, that these worlds were meteoric in nature, and had been formed and set spinning in this orderly fashion by the comet-creatures themselves.

For the time, though, we heeded not these things, intent on the scene ahead as our five cruisers shot silently through the lurid dusk toward the central world. Far away, now and then, against the coma's baleful glow, we caught sight of cube-ships moving still restlessly about in search of us, and once a party of these seemed to take up our course, to follow us. These, though, veered away in the dusk behind us, and then in a moment more we had passed above that ring of outer disk-worlds, and Jurt Tul and I, gazing forward from the control room, could make out the great, motionless mass of the central world beneath us, the world that was our goal. No light gleamed upon its darkened surface, lying in a weird picture there in the coma's crimson dusk. As we shot down toward it I saw vaguely in that dusk the great, massed machines here and there, the smooth streets, the enigmatic pits about them, and then the great clearing at the flat world's center.

"That clearing!" I whispered to Jurt Tul. "It was near it that Gor Han's and Najus Nar's ships fell--we'll land near it."

Our cruisers now were arrowing smoothly down toward one of the broader streets some distance from the clearing, since we could see now that on all the world below there moved only an occasional dark liquid-creature, the throngs we had seen before having unaccountably disappeared. Here and there above it moved a cube-ship, but none of these glimpsed us through the dusk, and in a moment more our cruisers had landed gently upon one of the smooth streets. There Jurt Tul and I swiftly stepped forth, for we had decided that we two alone could explore the comet-city more silently than a larger party. At once the cruisers swept back to wait for us in the dusk above, ready to make an attempt at escape from the comet should we be discovered. Then the amphibian and I moved swiftly along that silent street toward the great central plaza.

On each side of us loomed great massed machines at which we merely glanced as we hurried on. As we passed one of the pits that had puzzled me, though, I stepped to its edge, gazed down, then shrank back in horror! For in that shallow, smooth-walled pit there lay what seemed a great pool of thick black liquid unguessably deep, a pool formed by the liquid bodies of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of the liquid comet-creatures that had poured into it! I could glimpse the white eyes floating in it, here and there, but there was no other sign of life or movement in the mass, and as I saw that and thought of the rows upon rows of other similar pits that extended across the comet-city, I understood, and turned swiftly to Jurt Tul.

"Sleeping!" I exclaimed. "In their night, their rest-period, they must all pour into these pits together--mingling their liquid bodies!"

Swiftly we shrank back from the great pit, moved on toward the clearing. Massed machines, grim and gleaming and towering, loomed all about us, half seen in the crimson dusk, and we passed scores of the great, liquid-filled pits in which slept the comet-creatures, but there was no sign of our two friends. Had they been destroyed? Dread filled me, dread intensified because I realized that soon the comet-creatures would be ending their night, and turning on their white light of day, discovering us there on their world. Then, abruptly, Jurt Tul jerked me back from my forward stride, crouching silently with me upon the street, behind a mass of great mechanisms. For out of the darkness to our right had come the sound of something moving, something approaching us! Silently, tensely, we crouched there, and saw a dark shape moving stealthily down one of the branching streets toward us. It had turned from us, toward the great clearing ahead, when unexpectedly, as we crouched, my arm had brushed against the great machine beside us and touched something that moved beneath the touch, with a loud metallic clicking. Instantly that dark shape ahead had turned, and then was leaping straight toward us!

Before we could rise to meet it the rush of it had borne us downward, and as it did so I realized with a wild thrill that it was _not_ a liquid-creature but a great and warm and fur-covered being, many-limbed, that had attacked us! Even as that fact penetrated into my brain our struggle had abruptly ceased, and we were staggering erect, Jurt Tul and I grasping the other.

"Gor Han!" I exclaimed. "It's you!"

The great Betelgeusan's fur-covered body and strange features were clearly visible to us now as he grasped our own hands, his eyes wide.

"Khel Ken! Jurt Tul!" he whispered. "I thought you destroyed in the battle!"

"We hid--escaped," I explained to him swiftly. "But you, Gor Han--how have you escaped?--and where's Najus Nar?"

He was silent a moment, then suddenly dragged us down into the deeper shadow of the great machines beside us. There, with the lurid light of the coma on his strange features, he spoke swiftly.

"Najus Nar is--living," he said, "but I will tell you what came upon us. You saw our ships fall in the battle over the city here, crashing down into it. At once these liquid comet-creatures were upon us, most of our crews having been killed in the crash, and but a few were left; but these being injured, too, they annihilated them with crimson bolts before we realized it, leaving but Najus Nar and myself, whom they wished, apparently, to question. Us they secured by metal bonds to one of the great machines, then came to us with little metal models, made of what seemed plastic gleaming metal, which could change instantaneously through a myriad different forms at their operation, and which they used for a rough communication with us. And through these and the things they explained to us, we learned, Najus Nar and I, something of the purpose and the past of these comet-creatures.

"Eons they had dwelt upon the central worlds of this giant comet that roamed the outer void, shaping those worlds to their will as it flashed on. They had used the coma's electrical energy for their own weapons, and had used it to produce light-vibrations, a white light which they turned on and off for their day and night. The coma's energy, indeed, was the source of all their world's activities, but as their giant comet plunged on through space, that energy, ever shot backward in the tail that drove the comet on, was dissipated faster and faster, the coma waning and dying as all comets wane and die in time. But one thing could save them: to absorb into the coma vast quantities of matter, which would be converted instantly into electrical energy to replenish the coma. Not far from the great comet at that time loomed a vast universe of suns, and if the comet were to crash through the universe its suns and worlds would replenish their waning coma and save their comet from death. They needed but to change the comet's course, to send it toward the universe instead of passing it, and to do this they set up a great comet-control.

"This comet-control was set on the top of a truncated pyramid in a clearing at the central world's center. It was a great horizontal disk, set parallel to their disk-world, with a pointer that could be moved at will around the disk-dial. The position of the pointer, by means of great projectors to which it was connected, controlled the position of the comet's tail. If the pointer was at the dial's rear the tail would be shot forth from the great coma's rear also, driving it forward through space. If they turned the pointer to the left the tail would shoot from the coma's left, driving the comet to the right. They could thus, by means of the comet-control and the great projectors which controlled the tail's position, drive the comet in any direction at will. The only thing they could not do with it was to reverse the comet-control, to shoot out a new tail opposite to the old one, since the momentum of the old one and the opposite momentum or pressure of the new one would crush and annihilate the coma and its worlds between their great pressures. They could drive the comet to right or left at will, though, which was all that they needed, since now they drove it toward the universe of suns near them.

"Onward the giant comet drove to that universe, and soon crashed through it, its suns and worlds being sucked into the gigantic coma and annihilated there, converted instantly into electrical energy which restored the waning coma's glory. So onward through space with renewed power it flashed, through the great void between the galaxies, until ages later when its coma was again waning they drove it toward another universe, crashed through it likewise. And so through the eons, as ever the comet's glory, the coma's power, has waned, they have driven it through another universe, destroying that universe to restore it. On through the limitless void of outer space they have driven it, a cosmic vampire looting the life of universes to restore its own! And now, when the comet's glory has again waned, they have turned it toward our own galaxy, to destroy it as they have done countless others. And within less than a scant half-dozen hours now the comet will have thundered so close to our galaxy that no power in existence can turn it aside!

"All this we heard from the comet-creatures' communication with us, and then they proposed that we cast in our lot with them, forgetting our doomed universe, and help them build great cruisers and force-beam apparatus like those with which we had fought them. I refused, of course, not wishing to live under any conditions after our galaxy's death, but to my horror Najus Nar accepted the proposal! He joined them, not listening to my frantic words, and went away with them, leaving me in despair. Then when the gong sounded across their worlds that marked the end of the white light and the beginning of this night, I began to work frantically with the metal bonds that held me to the great machine, twisting and untwisting them until at last, but minutes ago, I managed to break them. They had counted on the bonds holding me, and had left no guard over me, so at once I started off toward the central clearing, toward the great comet-control, for a desperate last attempt at turning the comet aside with it. I heard you crouching there, thought you comet-creatures and sprang at you, and the rest you know."

* * * * *

When Gor Han's deep whisper had ceased we were silent a moment, and surely never did stranger trio crouch in stranger place than we three, earth-man and amphibian Aldebaranian and great fur-clad Betelgeusan, there in the crimson dusk of the comet-city, all about us the pits that held its countless liquid-creatures and above us the glowing red coma which encompassed this world and was driving on toward our galaxy's doom. At last I broke the silence.

"Najus Nar with the comet-creatures!" I whispered. "It's impossible! In all its record there have been no traitors in the Interstellar Patrol!"

Gor Han looked steadily, compassionately, at me. "It is so, Khel Ken," he said. "I would not believe it had I not seen it myself."

"Najus Nar!" I repeated, again, then gathered myself. "There's but one thing to do," I said swiftly, "and that's for us three to make the attempt you planned, Gor Han, to get to the comet-control in the clearing and turn it, then destroy it before they can turn it back!"

We rose, paused. "There are comet-guards at the pyramid's base and summit, I know," said Gor Han, "but if we can overcome them before this night-period ends we'll succeed!"

Swiftly we moved forward, now, down the street through the dusk toward the great clearing. Mighty machines looming in the red dusk on each side of us, dark pits yawning between them in which the comet-hordes lay silent, glowing crimson coma that swung above--these made an inconceivably weird scene about us through which we three, a weird and dissimilar enough trio in that lurid dusk, moved rapidly on. Once we saw a few of the liquid-creatures flowing across one of the streets ahead, shrank back until they had disappeared, then moved swiftly on. One or two cube-ships slid by above, too, but these did not spy us, and in a few minutes more we had emerged from the mass of machines and pits into the great flat-floored circular plaza at the city's center, the truncated pyramid rising vaguely from it in the crimson dusk.

"The guards!" whispered Gor Han. "There at the pyramid's base!"

I gazed, saw that a great notched stair or flight of narrow steps ran up the pyramid's side, and that at its foot were some four dark liquid-shapes, lying motionless, but with weapons of some sort, bolt-containers I did not doubt, held in the grasp of their viscous fluid bodies. A moment we hesitated, then crept out across the clearing toward them. They seemed not aware of our approach, and still nearer we crept stealthily, approaching them from a side, until just when we were within yards, within feet of them, one seemed to flow swiftly toward us for an instant, then back, at the same time training his deadly weapon upon us! Before he could loose the crashing bolts from it, though, we had sprung upon them!

The combat that followed at the pyramid's base was the most horrible, I think, that ever I engaged in. I had grasped at the body of one of the things but instantly felt the viscous liquid body withdraw from my grasp, flow away from me, while I struggled in vain for some hold upon it. Then I glimpsed Gor Han with his four great arms gripping one of the viscous things and hurling it against the pyramid's side before it could evade his grasp, shattering it into liquid black splashes there. The thing I struggled with had gripped me in turn, now, and was like fluid steel in the strength with which it held me. I felt a powerful viscous arm tightening about my neck, while others pinioned my arms, felt that grasp tightening, strangling me, and then it was abruptly torn from me as Gor Han lifted and flung it likewise! I rose, staggering, to see that of the four comet-creatures only black splashes here and there about us remained, Gor Han and Jurt Tul having annihilated them with their mighty limbs.

[Illustration: "The combat that followed was the most horrible I had ever engaged in."]

"Up to the pyramid's summit!" I choked, stumbling toward the stair's base. "We've a chance to win yet!"

The others were rushing toward the stair with me, and then suddenly, as we set foot upon it, we stopped short. For in the air about us, sounding out across all the central world and the worlds about it, had clanged the note of a mighty gong! I heard Gor Han and Jurt Tul cry out at that sound, but in the next instant brilliant white light had sprung into being about us, the light of the comet-creatures' day, suddenly turned on, bathing all things in their world in its revealing glare! And as we staggered there almost blinded by that brilliance, from the streets about us comet-creatures were flowing into the great clearing, liquid black comet-creatures in countless hordes from the pits of the mighty city. Even as they poured into the clearing they saw us, those on the pyramid's summit had also glimpsed us, and then from above and from all about the comet-creatures in countless thousands were rushing upon us!

4

There was a wild cry from Gor Han. "They've come out--it's the end of their night! And the end for us!"

The end for us! It seemed so in that instant, the great hordes of comet-creatures flowing in toward us from all the clearing's sides, from the pyramid's summit down toward us, the suddenly aroused cube-ships darting across the city toward us from far away. Then, even in that split-second of terror, I saw rushing toward us among those liquid-hordes a figure at sight of which I forgot even the doom that was upon us, an erect, many-limbed, familiar insect-figure as tall almost as myself, at sight of which I uttered a great cry.

"Najus Nar!" My great shout reached him even across the wild confusion and din of that moment, and I saw him gaze full toward us, his strange face expressionless, then rush on toward us without sign of recognition, one with the hordes of comet-creatures about him! I heard a gasp of unbelief as Jurt Tul beside me saw also, heard the crazy yell of great Gor Han as with eyes crimson he stepped forward to throw himself against those onrushing comet-creatures, then was conscious that great dark shapes had swooped down from behind us, hovering momentarily beside us. They were our five cruisers!

Their space-doors were already wide, and in the next instant, just before the comet-creatures were upon us, we had tumbled inside, were rocketing upward above the city pursued by scores of brilliant crimson bolts, two of which found their marks and sent two of our ships into flaring death. The cruiser into which we three had rushed, though, and the other two remaining ones, were racing up now above the white-lit central world, with the countless cubes rising swiftly after us, forming in a great crescent-formation behind us as they flashed after us across the ringed worlds toward the coma's wall!

"They're going to drive us straight into the coma itself!" cried Gor Han above the din of our generators as we flung madly on.

I saw in the same moment that it was so, that the great crescent of thousands of cube-ships that had risen to destroy us were not overhauling us, behind, but were driving us onward without chance of escape sidewise or downward, this time. The glowing wall loomed before us, and the single circular opening in that wall was guarded still by hundreds of other cube-ships, hanging in a solid mass across it. We could not escape through that opening, even had we desired escape, nor could we evade the relentless pursuit behind us, and inevitably within seconds more we would be driven into instant annihilation! Driven to our own deaths by the cubes behind us! This I saw, and in that instant of cold despair could have plunged on into that annihilating death, but then wild anger surged up in me and I whirled to Gor Han and Jurt Tul and the pilot beside them.

"Drive straight toward the opening!" I shouted. "Straight into the cube-ships there! If this is the end we'll take some of them, at least, with us!"

A fierce cry from the Betelgeusan, a reckless laugh from the amphibian, answered me as our three ships shot forward in that moment like things of light toward the cube-ships massed across the opening. Nearer we flashed toward them, nearer toward the hundreds of crimson bolts which in another moment would blast us, nearer--but look! look! Those hundreds of waiting ships had turned suddenly from us, had turned about and disregarding us were loosing their crimson bolts into the great passage-opening through the coma behind them, were falling back toward us from that opening, with red bolts blasting toward it! And then out of that opening after them came the things at which they fired, mass upon mass of long, shining shapes, of great, long _cruisers_, that burst forth from the opening in hundreds, in thousands, loosing upon the battling cubes a myriad of black shafts of the force-beams which in a moment more had driven them down and back in shattered masses of wreckage!

"Cruisers! Cruisers of the Interstellar Patrol!"

We were all shouting madly, then. Cruisers, the five thousand cruisers that had been sent out after our own thousand and that now, at the last, had found their way inside the comet in time to save us! They were shooting toward our own, massing about us, and then as from our bows flashed the signal that was mine as Chief of the Patrol, they were massing swiftly behind us, battle formation again in long parallel lines, with our own ship at their head!

"Back to the central world!" I cried, my eyes upon the time-dial set before me. "We've minutes left yet to get to that comet-control!"

Cruisers massed together, we were leaping back, now, back toward the spinning worlds, and toward the great crescent-formation of cube-ships that faced us now. Before those thousands of cube-ships had grasped what had happened, before they could turn, could change their formation, our compact mass had driven into them. Then cruiser thousands and cube-ship thousands were spinning and striking and mingling together, smiting with black force-beams and crimson bolts in titanic battle inside the tremendous electrical coma, whirling and stabbing in awful combat, the comet-creatures for their comet and we for our universe! Comet and galaxy had come to grips at last as those two huge fleets caught and struck at each other!