Edmond Hamilton
The Cosmic Cloud
We three stared at the Chief across the metal desk for a moment before I broke the silence.
'But it's incredible!' I exclaimed. 'You must be mistaken, sir-nothing in the galaxy could cause a thing like that!'
Jhul Din and Korus Kan nodded in agreement beside me, but the Chief of the Interstellar Patrol shook his head.
'Yet something in the galaxy is causing it, Dur Nal,' he said. 'I tell you that this thing has taken thousands of interstellar ships in the last few days without giving us any clue to its cause!'
Slowly I shook my head. 'I don't doubt what you say, sir,' I told him, 'but it seems impossible.'
The four of us were sitting in a small metal-walled room through whose window came the red light of mighty Betelgeuse, the sun upon one of whose planets we were. The room was part of the Betelgeuse headquarters of the Interstellar Patrol, and to it but hours before from the great central headquarters at Canopus had come Lacq Larus, Chief of the Patrol. His first act had been to summon our cruiser, which had been patrolling off Betelgeuse, and he sat considering us now, a great plant-man of Capella whose strange green fibrous body was tense and whose green-pupiled eyes were unmoving as he faced us.
Jhul Din and Korus Kan and I sat across the desk from him. Jhul Din was of Spica, a big powerful crustacean-man, his strong body armored in black shell, his quick eyes protruding. Korus Kan, of Antares, was typical of that star's races, his upright man-like body being of metal, with lens-like eyes, a tireless body-machine in which his living brain was cased. I, Earth-man, completed the trio, and though the members of the Interstellar Patrol are from every peopled sun no stranger three in appearance could have been found in it.
Lacq Larus had been looking thoughtfully out of the window across the teeming world of Betelgeusans outside, but turned and again faced us. 'I will explain to you the whole situation,' he said, 'for it's imperative that you three understand it.
'As you know, our galaxy is a great swarm of suns floating in the vast gulf of space, each with its own worlds and peoples. All. of course, are ruled by the Federation of Suns, and all are policed by our own Interstellar Patrol. Back and forth between these suns has gone the galaxy's interstellar commerce for ages, countless thousands of great space-ships plying from sun to sun without hindrance. But now at last this great commerce of the galaxy is threatened with disaster!
'That threat lies in what we have always known as the cosmic cloud, a vast cloud of utter darkness that lies, as you know, near the galaxy's center. It has always lain there, a tremendous area of utter blackness billions of miles in extent, and of it our scientists have been able to say with certainty only that it is a tremendous region where the light-vibrations are simply non-existent.
'More than that none could say, for no ship can venture into that region without plunging into absolute lightlessness, so that none knows what may lie inside. It is true that some years ago one of the galaxy's scientists, Zat Zanat by name, ventured into the cloud to explore it in a ship with some assistants, having some new theory concerning it which he wished to test. But this scientist, one of the scientists of the sun of Deneb, never emerged from it and without doubt met death in it as many luckless ships in the past have done.
'None other has ever desired to penetrate into the great cloud and the galaxy's interstellar ships have always routed their course far around it, to escape the danger. But suddenly, a few days ago, hundreds of ships passing near the great cloud in space were drawn abruptly into it by some titanic and irresistible force. Their calls for help came to our distance-phones and a score of cruisers of the Patrol were rushed to the cloud's edge to investigate. But they found that the unfortunate swarms of ships had vanished inside it by then, their calls ceasing soon after, and there was no trace of what force had whirled them in!
'Instantly warnings were broadcast to all interstellar ships to avoid the neighborhood of the cloud. The cruisers of the Patrol then reconnoitered completely around it for more than a day, finding nothing unusual. At last we were convinced that it was some great ether-disturbance that had whirled the luckless ships inside, and orders were given that the space-lanes around the cloud were again safe. Yet the interstellar traffic had been streaming around it for no more than a few hours when the thing was repeated, and more than a thousand other great ships were drawn with terrific power and swiftness into the great blackness.
'Again all traffic around the cloud was suspended and again a squadron of Interstellar Patrol cruisers flashed to the scene. But they found nothing more this time, no sign of what had caused the great disaster. For two days we waited, though, but the cruisers there reported all as usual. So with some misgivings we yielded to the clamor from the galaxy's suns and allowed the ships again to route their course around the great blackness. A day passed without mishap and we began to breathe easier. And then the thing struck again, and again, but hours ago, more than a thousand ships with all inside them were whirled into the great cloud's darkness.
'This third disaster has caused something like a panic across the galaxy. All realize now that interstellar traffic around the cloud must be suspended until the thing is cleared up, and since the cloud lies almost at the galaxy's center that means the crippling of our interstellar commerce. Always, in time of great peril, the galaxy's peoples have turned to the Interstellar Patrol to save them. They are turning to us now to bring an end to this great threat, and we of the Patrol must not fail them.'
Lacq Larus halted for a moment and as he did so the three of us were on our feet.
'When do we start for the cloud, sir?' asked Jhul Din quietly.
The Chief smiled. 'You have guessed it,' he said. 'I have summoned you here to Betelgeuse, have come here from Canopus to meet you because it is on you three that I now rely. You, Dur Nal and Korus Kan and Jhul Din, saved all this galaxy once, when you dared outside our universe to other universes to thwart those who would have loosed death on us.
'I am asking you, therefore, to dare again for the galaxy, to endeavor to find what force it is that has whirled those thousands of ships into the blackness of the cosmic cloud. I dare not send a number of cruisers there, for all may be lost like the others. I do not even give you an order to go, for it means certain death if that force manifests itself again and draws you into the cloud. But if you can explore around its edges you may be able with your recording-instruments to find out what great ether-disturbance or unknown force it is that has caused these terrible calamities, may save the galaxy from greater ones. I say again though that it is not an order. If you, Dur Nal and your two lieutenants wish to go in your cruiser it is well, but if you do not wish to you need not. What say you?'
He was looking at me fixedly, but my eyes were on the time-dial on my wrist.
'We should reach the cloud's edge within ten hours,' was all I said.
Minutes later our cruiser was slanting up at mounting speed from that swarming world of Betelgeusans, our crew rushing about its throbbing generators and Korus Kan and Jhul Din and I in its pilot room. With Korus Kan at the wheel the long ship rose through the glare of the great crimson sun and threaded through the masses of interstellar shipping until it was speeding through the black gloom of space, with all about us the shining hosts of the galaxy's suns.
Far ahead there stood out against the farther stars what seemed a small black spot in the galaxy's star- swarm. It was, we knew, the colossal cosmic cloud of darkness absolute into which thousands of ships had been drawn to some strange fate, and whose secret, if secret there were, we must discover. With the cruiser's hull quivering slightly and with the generators beneath talking louder we hurtled at thousands of light-speeds across the galaxy toward that lightless region.
Hour upon hour our cruiser flew like a thing of thought through the vast spaces toward the cloud. At the highest speed safe to use inside the galaxy we were traveling, and as we drew nearer the cloud's edge our space- chart showed that no other ships were in space about us now, all avoiding the cloud's strange menace. But our own craft hurtled steadily on, and steadily the vast region of blackness grew greater in the firmament before us.
In the cruiser's instrument room Jhul Din and I prepared the intricate recording-instruments on which the success of our venture depended. These were mechanisms connected to various indicators outside the hull, which recorded all ether-currents and drifts and disturbances around the ship, all electrical or radioactive or other forces, and all conditions of temperature and pressure.
