FINAL GLORY

By HENRY HASSE

The Sun was dying—and with it the System. Earth was a cold stone. Survivors huddled on a cheerless Mercury, waiting numbly. But Praav in his inscrutable wisdom—

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Spring 1947. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

N'Zik was a forlorn and weary figure at the forward port. He balanced his frail, bulbous body on four of his eight limbs, while the other four moved listlessly over the etheroscope, adjusting sights and lenses. N'Zik wondered dully why he bothered. Even from here he could see that the system looking ahead, the dull reddish Sun with its wild and darksome planets, was not for them.

Bitterness flooded his soul. To have come so far and searched so long, only to find this! In all this Galaxy here was the one Sun that sustained a planetary system, and that Sun was dying! The irony was more than he could bear.

Shi-Zik came to stand beside him. Only she and N'Zik were left, of all the thousands; two alone on this driving colossus which was the only world they had ever known. She sensed his bitterness now and tried to speak words of hope.

"See, N'Zik, there are inner planets! How close their orbits are! There may still be warmth and life-sustaining rays."

N'Zik's limbs sprawled outward in despair.

"This dying system is not for us, Shi-Zik. The five largest and outermost planets are but barren, frigid rock. But if you wish, we shall go inward."

His limbs flashed over the huge control-console. Gradually the ship slowed in its headlong pace. Nearly the size of a small planet, was this ship; entire generations had been born and died aboard it, during the trip between Galaxies. Somewhere deep inside, perpetual generators pounded out the power that had driven them through space faster than light.

N'Zik and Shi-Zik had never seen those generators, nor were they conscious now of the smooth threnody. They had known it always. Miles of inter-locking corridors extended behind them too, a veritable city with vast rooms of wonderful machinery—but none of this had they ever seen. For DEATH had struck suddenly there, was lurking there still.

The huge metal tomes told of it. N'Zik and Shi-Zik had read that history so often that they knew it now by heart. They knew how and why the last generations had been wiped out.

The first scientists had planned well for the safety and well-being of the generations to come, but they had overlooked one thing. Within their own Galaxy they had been cognizant of certain cosmic rays, which were harmless insofar as they had no apparent effect on living tissues. However, in that utter vacuity between Galaxies no such rays existed! And there between Galaxies new generations were born. Five, ten, a dozen generations. And at last—they had reached the new Galaxy....

Whether the cosmic rays here differed, or whether the new generations had simply lost all resistance to them, was never fully known. The race had died by thousands as the hard rays penetrated the ship. The scientists worked feverishly to build up a section with layers of their heaviest metals; but by the time they had achieved a sufficient thickness, a few dozen had survived.

N'Zik and Shi-Zik were the last of that final group.

Now, under N'Zik's sure guidance, the ship crossed the orbits of the outer planets. He had thrown over the deceleration control, but their speed was still tremendous.

In a few minutes craggy fragments of rock were skimming past their hull. The larger ones were deflected by automatic repulsion plates and the few that drifted through became molten upon contact. Such was their speed.

Then they were through the swarm, and N'Zik remarked, "This is an old system indeed. At one time a planet must have occupied that orbit."

"Look." Shi-Zik's spider-like body was taut with eagerness as she pointed to a planet far ahead, swinging away from their trajectory. "Shall we follow it?"

"There is no purpose. We can pick it up in the etheroscope." N'Zik adjusted the sights. The planet together with its two moons leaped into view on the screen. N'Zik manipulated the magnilens and it was brought still nearer.

Vast icy caps encompassed most of this world. The rest was frozen desert, slightly reddish, with a few peculiar straight-line markings that might have been man-made. But that didn't interest them now. It was all too apparent that this planet had been uninhabitable for millennia.

"Dead. A frozen, dead world," Shi-Zik intoned. "Let us go on to the next one."

They moved ever inward. The next planet with its single satellite offered no more promise. Here they saw stark mountain ranges in contrast to vast hollows that might have been dead ocean bottoms. The magnilens picked out several cities, tottering, crumbling in ruin.

"Cities," N'Zik muttered. "Cities still standing on this airless world. A civilization once existed here, and it cannot have been so long ago. Shall we go on, Shi-Zik? There are two or three other planets but I fear they will offer no more than this."

Now something of N'Zik's despair came upon Shi-Zik. "No, we need not go on. I feel weary of it all. I care not if we ever find the place we seek."

"I too, have had this feeling," N'Zik waved his limbs in agreement. "Shi-Zik, we have searched this Galaxy through. There may yet be life-giving Suns with planets, but we have not much time. Of late I have felt the engines becoming sluggish of power...."

"True. The way has been long." She gestured hopelessly. "Do you suggest then, that we put an end to the mission?"

"Not without your consent, Shi-Zik."

"I have wanted to end it!" Shi-Zik cried. "For a very long time I have thought of it, but dared not speak."