The cosmic cloud
I ran madly forward, collided with a great creature and then with
another, and as I blundered away from them was aware that in this world
of perpetual darkness I was at a terrible disadvantage in attempting
to escape the creatures of darkness who pursued me. Flute-like cries
were sounding all along the street now, it seemed, a babel of shouts
of alarm spreading quickly over the city. As I blundered again into
a great creature whose flap-arms sought to grasp me I realized that
not for long could I elude them in this darkness to which they were
accustomed. Again I yielded to instinct, and as I felt beside me a wide
door I threw myself through it, crouched motionless just inside it and
behind the base of what felt to my touch like a great metal mechanism.
It seemed a great room in which I was, for I heard from far along it
through the darkness the humming and clanging of machinery, and also
the hurrying steps of many of the creatures of darkness as they left
their tasks to answer the alarm of cries in the street outside. Their
flapping limbs took them directly past me as they rushed to the door,
and I could have reached out in the darkness and touched them. I made
no move, scarcely daring to breathe; for though I was but a few feet
from them, I felt sure they could become aware of my presence in the
darkness only by any sounds that I might make.
I heard them answering in their strange voices utterances of the
creatures outside, heard the noise of the alarm gradually receding as
those who searched for me moved along the street. I breathed a little
easier for a moment, but only for a moment. For as the creatures who
had rushed to the door streamed back into the great room two of them
halted so close beside me that their bodies actually brushed slightly
against my arm.
Motionless as a statue I crouched there in the darkness, as the two
conversed in their fluting voices beside me. Were they to move a
fraction of an inch nearer they must discover me. Were the slightest
sound to come from me my discovery was certain.
At last, after what seemed an eternity of waiting, though it could
have been really no more than a few moments, the two passed on, and a
kindly providence kept them from brushing nearer me as they went. Soon
the activities of the great hall seemed resumed, the humming of its
mechanisms coming to me again through the darkness, and the sound of
the creatures among them moving from one to another.
The peril of immediate discovery seemed past, but how could I hope
to escape for long in this city, this world, of eternal darkness? I
could not move through it as the creatures that inhabited it did, as
surely as though in day; and to stumble blindly through its streets
meant swift discovery. How could I hope to find Korus Kan and Jhul Din
and the others in this strange world of which I could see nothing? It
seemed that by escaping for a while as I had done from our captors I
was but prolonging an agony of spirit that might otherwise have been
cut short, at least, by death.
In this desperate situation I strove to order my thoughts. It was
apparent that to remain where I was would be useless, since though I
might escape discovery for a short time it would inevitably come. It
would be better to make an effort, at least, to find the others and the
cruiser, even though such an effort would be stamped from the first as
hopeless. To attempt to pass through the streets of this city seemed
insane, yet to do so held the one slender chance of finding the others;
so I summoned all my courage and crept out through the wide door and
into the smooth-paved street outside.
There, pausing helplessly in the darkness, I listened intently. From
all along the street came the flopping steps of the creatures moving
this way or that. It seemed to me that it was along the edges of the
street that fewest of the creatures moved; so, hugging the smooth walls
of the buildings, I began to creep forward.
As flopping steps approached me through the darkness ahead I halted,
for I knew that the sound of my own steps would betray me to the keen
hearing of these creatures. In a moment the approaching creature had
passed me and again I took up my careful progress forward. Again I
halted as there came other steps near me. Slowly I made my way along
the street, crouching motionless whenever any of the creatures neared
me, praying that they might not collide with me. Blindly I felt my way
forward through this city of awful night.
At last I felt myself at the street's end, with no more of the
smooth-walled buildings beside me. I seemed emerging into a great open
space, across which came a tremendous bustle of activity. I moved out
a little into it, crouching every few instants as flopping steps came
and went about me, until I struck something like a great smoothly
curving wall of metal before me. For an instant I felt of it and then
was motionless in amazement, for it took but that instant for me to
recognize what was before me. It was a great interstellar ship, like
those that plied the galaxy in countless thousands, and like those that
had been drawn into this cosmic cloud in thousands!
* * * * *
For a moment astonishment held me to the exclusion of all else. That
this before me was one of the thousands of ships that had been drawn
into the cloud I could not doubt. Had all then been captured like our
own by these creatures of darkness? What could it mean?
I was aware that a tremendous activity was going on far around and
before me, and as I made my way cautiously through the darkness along
the hull of the ship I heard a stream of creatures pouring in and out
of its space-doors, busy carrying in things of metal that clanked
against the doors as they went through them. Avoiding them, I moved
to the side and in moments had come to another great interstellar
ship that was the center of a similar scene of activity. Evidently
there were a great number of them in the open space before me, and as
evidently they were being prepared and fitted by these creatures of
darkness for some great enterprise. But what enterprise--what could it
be?
I stifled the wonder and amazement that were strong in me, though, for
I realized that this swarming place was one of the most dangerous I
could encounter. It was inevitable that some of the creatures would
collide with me in the darkness if I stayed there long, so reluctantly
I crept back toward the street from which I had emerged.
It did not seem that street which I entered again, though, but a
narrower one. There were in it fewer of the city's creatures than in
the other street, though I heard still the flopping steps of many of
them hastening to and from the open space and interstellar ships which
I had just left. I started along it, blindly and aimlessly, not knowing
whether I was going back in the direction from which I had come, and
not caring greatly. For by that time it seemed clear to me that I was
destined to wander blindly through the darkness of the city until
discovered and captured, so slender seemed any hope that remained to me.
Still I observed all caution, crouching low each time the sound of
approaching creatures came to my ears, not moving until they had
passed. Once as I flattened myself thus the flap-like limb or foot of
the passing thing actually touched my hand, so close did it come to me,
but as I did not move the thing passed on.
After feeling through the darkness along this street for perhaps a
thousand yards, my greatest worry being to avoid the creatures who
emerged suddenly now and then from the doors along it, I was aware of a
still narrower street that branched from it. I took this way, and soon
realized that in this narrower way were few of the darkness creatures,
they taking the broader streets that crossed the city. I met but one
or two of the things in several thousand feet of progress along the
street, and though it was harder to elude them in the narrower way I
began to feel more confidence. It was that confidence that undid me,
for as I passed the door of a building without my usual precautions
there emerged suddenly from it one of the great creatures who collided
squarely with me.
For an instant the thing must have been even more surprized than I was,
and before it could realize what had happened I had flung myself upon
it, for well I realized that flight would not serve me now.
My hands sought in vain for a hold upon the smooth, cold body, even as
its own great flap-like arms wrapped themselves around me. The thing
seemed to have no head or neck whatever, and was almost featureless
also. But by the merest chance my hands in that first instance fell
upon a narrow aperture in the cold flesh of the upper part of the
body. Instantly I closed my hand over it, and as a strangled flute-cry
came from it I realized that I had found the monster's mouth. Holding
tightly to it and encircling its great body with my other arm I
wrestled wildly with it there in the darkness of the narrow street as
it sought to shake me off.
The strength of its flap-arms was tremendous, but they were impeded by
the fact that I had partly pinned them against its body. Yet it was
whirling me this way and that with tremendous force, against the walls
and paving of the street.
Nothing but choking sounds came from it, though, and I realized that
the creature was air-breathing even as I was and that my hold upon its
mouth-aperture was throttling it. Desperately I clung to retain the
hold, and with a strength as desperate the great thing tried to tear
me loose. I knew that a single cry would bring a swarm of the things
to the aid of this one, and the knowledge steeled my muscles. The wild
threshing of the creature seemed rapidly lessening, and in moments more
my strangling hold had done its work and with a few convulsive jerks
the monster went limp and dead.
I straightened from it, panting, then froze with renewed terror. Along
the narrow street other steps were approaching me, somewhat lighter
steps that were moving carefully as though in investigation, halting
now and then. As they came level with me they halted again, and I held
my breath. But in the next instance came the sound of the steps coming
straight toward me!
With something like a cry of despair on my lips I threw myself forward
at the approaching one through the darkness. I knew myself discovered,
expected, even as I leaped, the flute-like cry that would bring the
hordes in the neighboring streets upon me. But to my utter amazement,
my hands grasped not another cold and bulky-bodied creature of darkness
but a tall, erect man-like form that was making no resistance to me! I
felt short, flat bat-like wings behind that body, felt a man-like head
with big-beaked countenance, and then felt two muscular arms grasping
my shoulders while a voice whispered tensely in my ear in the tongue of
the galaxy.
"Quiet!" it whispered. "Another sound will bring them here from the
other street!"
"You----" I stammered. "You're from the galaxy outside--you speak its
tongue--but how in this darkness----"
"Not now!" the other warned. "I'll explain in a moment, but now we've
got to get out of this street and get this dead thing out before it's
discovered. Here--this way----"
Moving through the rayless opacity as a man in a dream might move, I
felt myself guided by the other back to the body of the thing I had
slain. We lifted it between us and my companion went a little along the
street until he turned into a narrow aperture between two smooth-walled
structures. Into this we cast the bulky body, and then crouched down
together by it. The other had moved through the darkness as easily as
through light, I had found, and my first whispered words as we crouched