The Cosmic Cloud ip-7 Read online

  "It was my plan to see in the darkness of the cloud by the vibrations beyond light, the ultra-violet vibrations. They were not neutralized, not affected, and I devised certain ray-filter disks or glasses that made the eyes sensitive to the ultra-violet vibrations, and thus showed all things in violet light, since the ultra-violet rays have the same sources as light-rays.

  "Equipped with these glasses I and my assistants ventured into the cosmic cloud in our cruiser. Its interior lay in violet light before us, and after cruising in near its center we descried a small planet that hung motionless in it. We landed to explore it and found it inhabited by strange eyeless creatures of darkness who had evolved on it in the ages and who, because they had evolved in utter darkness had no eyes at all but had a hearing so marvelously keen that it served them instead.

  "Hardly had we landed on this world when the creatures captured us. They took us before their rulers, who examined us. These eyeless creatures had never imagined that other worlds might lie outside the cloud, nor had they any space-ships. But learning that there were many worlds outside, they began to plan how they might pour out and seize them, for their numbers were cramped on this small world.

  "My assistants they slew, but kept me, torturing me with the pain-producing weapons to gain information from me. They saw that they would need thousands of great ships to enable them to pour out on the galaxy, and had not the means of making them soon. They devised, therefore, a way of drawing in the numbers of ships they needed from those coming and going in the galaxy around the cloud.

  "This was to increase many times the magnetism of their world. Every world in space is a great magnet with north and south poles, as you know, and they planned to increase the magnetic power of their world thousands of times by a means they knew, which involved the simultaneous electrical charging of both their world's poles.

  "They prepared the apparatus at the poles and placed the control of it on the top of the great building of their rulers. When that control was closed the magnetism of this world at the cloud's heart was suddenly intensified thousands of times. Its tremendous power reached out through the cloud and caught great swarms of the interstellar ships passing outside, and drew them swiftly in.

  "Had they left the control closed their world would have drawn in those ships to smash in annihilation against it, but just after the helpless ships were drawn into their world's atmosphere the control was opened and the magnetic grip released. Then while the swarms of ships, helpless in the darkness, were in their atmosphere, their own ships they had constructed in small numbers and which they could operate in space by means of reflected electrical-sound vibrations instead of sight-in these ships they went up and boarded and captured the helpless vessels.

  "They brought them down to this world's surface, those inside them helpless in the darkness against these people of darkness. Almost all inside the captured ships they slew with the pain-producers, but a few who they thought would be useful to them they saved and prisoned as I was prisoned in the building of the rulers.

  "Soon afterward they repeated this process, closing the control and drawing in new swarms of ships from outside the cloud. And again they did the same thing and with the same result. The fourth time they captured but one ship, your own, but this can have made no difference to them, for their first three operations had brought them in thousands of great interstellar ships in which all the eyeless hordes could be contained.

  "Already they had almost completed the refitting of these ships, fitting them with their vibration-guiding devices, and also with the mechanisms they will take with them for their conquest of the galaxy. These are mechanisms each of which can destroy all light for a vast space around it by neutralizing the light-vibrations even as is done by natural forces here in the cloud.

  "And with these they will conquer the galaxy inevitably. For they need but settle upon a world and with their mechanisms or one of them destroy all light in and around it. Plunged in absolute darkness, its blind peoples will be unable to strike back at the eyeless creatures who, used to darkness and at home in it, can wipe out the others at their leisure with the pain-producers.

  "Already their last preparations are being finished, already their hordes streaming toward the waiting masses of interstellar ships. It was that knowledge that made me desperate, and in desperation I managed to escape from the building of the rulers that was my prison. I have kept always with me the ultra-violet sight-glasses, and with a pair of them was able to elude the creatures, hoping to steal a cruiser and get out to the galaxy to warn it. But I could not get near any of the ships, and in going through the city in a vain hope of doing so I saw you battling with and killing that creature and came to you."

  * * *

  When Zat Zanat had finished his strange tale, I was silent for a moment, gazing out into the narrow violet-lit street beside which we crouched.

  "You think then that the only hope is to steal a cruiser and get out of the cloud to warn the galaxy before the attack comes?" I asked.

  He nodded quickly. "What other hope is there? Nothing can halt this invasion of theirs, for before an hour more is past, it may well be, their hordes will be pouring out of the cloud in their cruisers. You can hear them making ready now."

  "But what of my friends? I can't escape and leave Jhul Din and Korus Kan here, or the others either."

  He thought for a moment. "For your cruiser's crew there is no hope." he said, "for the rulers would order them slain at once. If your two friends seemed of any importance, though, there is a chance that they would have been let live for a while, prisoned there in the ruler's building."

  "Then it's for us to get them out," I said, and he laughed shortly.

  "That's all," he agreed. "Well, one thing seems hardly more hopeless than another, and we may as well try it. But we must get your friends soon if ever, for these creatures of darkness will surely kill their prisoners to the last one before they leave."

  We stood up, then ventured cautiously into the narrow street. Looking along its violet-lit length I could see in the broader street that crossed it innumerable dark shapes hastening this way and that. The buildings on each side of the streets were tall rectangular ones a few hundred feet in height, their walls smooth and black like the paving of the streets. They had doors but no windows whatever, seeming like great boxes. It was with an effort that I remembered that in unending darkness there was small need for windows.

  Zat Zanat pointed out over the city to a great block-like building that towered above all others, and on whose top I could make out the shapes of resting space-ships.

  "The building of the rulers," he whispered. "It's there your friends are, if they still live."

  "Lead on, then," I said, and without further words we started down the narrow way.

  As we came toward the broader avenue that crossed it we went more carefully, and it was here that I had my first real glimpse of the creatures of darkness with whom I had struggled and from whom and among whom I had fled. They were much as my touching hands had informed me, great upright bodies of dark flesh moving on two flap-like lower limbs and with two similar arms. In the upper part of the body the only features were the small opening of the mouth and great cup-like ears set on each side of it.

  As I watched, with something of a recurrence of my former horror, I saw that the creatures seemed to judge all their movements by hearing, avoiding one another when they heard the sound of steps, and avoiding walls and other obstacles evidently by listening to the echo of their own steps. The product of evolution in the unending darkness of the cosmic cloud, hearing meant to them all that sight could mean to children of light.

  * * *

  Zat Zanat, making a sign of caution to me, stepped forward and led the way across the border street, at a time when the stream of eyeless creatures had lessened. As we approached its other side, though, the approach of two of the monsters bearing a section of machinery between them forced us to halt lest our steps be heard. The two passed but inches fr
om us, and unutterably strange and terrifying it was to stand silent there in the violet-lit street with those creatures flopping past. It took an effort to remember that when we made no sound they could not perceive us.

  As we moved on I glanced ahead and back and saw that over all the city as far as the eye could reach, in the violet light which was in reality not light, streams of the creatures were pouring toward great square open spaces in the city where rested the thousands of captured interstellar ships. The last pieces of mechanism were being loaded into these, it seemed, and the monsters themselves were pouring into them. They were on the point of making their start out through the cloud to fall upon the galaxy's worlds!

  The sight spurred us forward. Halting now and then and freezing motionless as statues to allow some of the darkness creatures to pass around or near us, we made our way through the streets until we were nearing the great building of the rulers. By then the greater part of the city's hordes had poured toward and into the massed interstellar ships, and because of that we went forward more quickly.

  Zat Zanat turned now and then to whisper caution, though, and the third time that he did so I saw his eyes widen suddenly in terror behind his glasses, saw him racing back toward me with arms outstretched. With swift sense of panic I made to whirl around but before I could do so two great flap-arms had closed on me from behind, and in grasping my head knocked loose the glasses from my eyes.

  Instantly I was plunged into the most profound darkness, and then as there came a rush of feet was released by the creature that had held me and sent staggering off into the darkness. I heard a terrific struggle going on in the darkness beside me, knew that Zat Zanat and the monster were locked in death-grips, but was helpless to aid my friend in the blindness that was upon me.

  Rushing toward the sound of battle I was knocked back and down by a great blow that caught my face. I pawed frantically along the street in search of the glasses I had lost, heard over the scuffle in the dark the sound of Zat Zanat's gasps for breath and a smothered flute-like cry from his antagonist.

  Abruptly the sounds of struggle ceased, and somewhere in the darkness a heavy weight thudded against the paving. Which of the two had won? I waited statue-like for the answer until I was grasped by the shoulders, and whirled around in sudden terror. But as I did so a hand was again pressing the eye-disks against my eyes and as the whole scene sprang from deep darkness into violet light once more I saw that it was Zat Zanat, disheveled and panting for breath, and that the other lay dead upon the paving.

  "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 wher
e 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!