The excited audience rewarded Evda Nahl with a shower of green lights.

Grom Orme rose to speak.

‘‘The question and the Council’s decision have already been made clear so that my speech will, apparently, be the last. We are going to ask mankind to curtail consumption for the year 809 of the Great Circle Era. Darr Veter did not mention the golden horse dating back to the Era of Disunity that the historians found. These hundreds of tons of pure gold can be used for the production of anameson so that a supply sufficient for the flights will soon be ready. For the first time in world history we are sending out three simultaneous expeditions to different stellar systems and for the first time we are trying to reach worlds that are seventy light years away!”

The President closed the meeting requesting only the members of the Council to remain. A demand for all requirements had to be drawn up for the Economic Council and a request had to be made to the Academy of Stochastics and Prognostication to investigate all possible hazards on the way to Achernar.

Weary Chara plodded along behind Evda wondering how it was that the famous psychiatrist’s pale cheeks were as fresh as ever. The girl wanted to be alone as quickly as possible so that she could quietly enjoy the exoneration of Mven Mass. It had been a red-letter day! It is true the African had not been crowned as a hero in the way Chara had secretly hoped; he had been removed from the list of leaders for a long time, if not for ever. But he had been allowed to remain in society! Was not the wide and tortuous road of love, research and labour open to them both?

Evda Nahl forced the girl to go to the nearest dining-room. Chara stared at the menu so long that Evda decided to take action, and called the numbers of the dishes and the index of their table into the speaking tube. They sat down at a little oval table for two in the centre of which a trapdoor opened almost immediately and a container with their order appeared. Evda Nahl offered Chara a glass containing the opalescent invigorating drink Lio but was herself satisfied with a glass of cold water and a baked pudding of chestnuts, walnuts and bananas served with whipped cream. Chara ate a dish made from the minced meat of the rapt, a bird that has replaced both the domestic fowl and game birds in the modern cuisine. After Chara had eaten, Evda let her go and watched her as she ran down the staircase, with a grace that was astonishing even in the Great Circle Era, passing between statues of black metal and lanterns on posts of the most whimsical shapes.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

ANGELS OF HEAVEN

Erg Noor held his breath as he followed the manipulations of the skilled laboratory workers. The mass of instruments reminded him of a spaceship’s control tower, but the huge area of the room with its big, bluish windows, immediately took his mind off the Cosmic ship.

On a metal table in the middle of the room stood a special chamber made of thick sheets of rutholucite, a material that is transparent to visible and to infrared rays. A network of pipes and wires encircled the brown enamel water-tank from the spaceship in which the two black jelly-fish from the planet of the iron star were still imprisoned.

Eon Thai, erect as though doing gymnastics but with his arm still helplessly hanging in a sling, looked from a distance at the slowly revolving drum of a recording instrument. Above the biologist’s black brows there appeared beads of perspiration.

Erg Noor licked his dry lips.

‘“Nothing there. There can’t be anything left but dust after five years’ journey,” said the astronaut hoarsely.

“If so, that’s bad luck for Nisa and me,” answered the biologist, “we shall probably have to fumble for years to find out the nature of our injuries.”

“Do you still think that the ‘medusae’ and the ‘crosses’ have the same organs for killing victims?”

“I do. Grimm Schar and all the others have come to the same conclusion. Before that I had the most unexpected ideas. I imagined that the black cross had nothing at all to do with the planet….”

“I thought so, too; if you remember, I spoke about it. I got the idea that it was a being from the disc-shaped spaceship and was on guard over it. If you think about it seriously there’s no reason to guard an invincible fortress from the outside, is there? When we tried to open the disc we had proof of the foolishness of such ideas.”

“My idea was that the ‘cross’ wasn’t alive but was just a robot placed there to guard the spaceship.”

“That’s what I thought. But now, of course, I’ve given up all such ideas. The black cross is a living being engendered by the world of darkness. The beasts probably live down below, on the plain. This one came from the direction of the gap in the cliffs. The medusae are lighter and more mobile, they live on the platean where we landed. The connection between the black cross and the spiral disc is a pure coincidence due to the fact that our protective arrangements did not reach the far corner of the plain and it was all the time in the shadow behind the disc.”

“And do you think the lethal organs of the ‘cross’ and the ‘medusa’ are identical?”

“Yes. Animals living in similar conditions should evolve similar organs. The iron star is a sun that radiates heat and electricity. The whole atmosphere of the planet is strongly saturated with electricity. Grimm Schar believes that the animals gathered energy from the atmosphere and created condensations like our fire-balls. Do you remember how the brown lights moved along the tentacles of the medusae?”

“The cross had tentacles, too, but there was no….” “Simply because nobody had time to take note of them. The nature of the injury to the nerve column accompanied by paralysis of the higher centre concerned — we all agree on this — is the same in my case and Nisa’8. That is the chief proof and the main hope!” “Hope?” Erg Noor showed signs of agitation. “Of course. Look at this,” said the biologist showing him the regular line of the recording instrument. “The sensitive electrodes placed in the trap with the jelly-fish do not show anything. The monsters had a full charge of energy when they went in there and it could not have escaped from the tank after it was sealed. I do not think that the insulation of the cosmic food containers could be broken down, it’s much stronger than our light biological spacesuits. If you remember, the ‘cross’ that injured Nisa did not do you any harm. Its supersonic waves penetrated into the super-protective spacesuit you wore and broke down your will-power but the paralyzing chargea were powerless to inflict harm. They penetrated Nisa’B light spacesuit in the same way as the jelly-fish’s penetrated mine.”

“You mean that the charges of globular lightning or whatever it is that went into the tank should still be there, is that it? But the instruments don’t record anything.”

“That’s why I say there is hope: it means that the jelly-fish have not been reduced to dust. They….”

“Now I understand. They have sealed themselves up in something like a cocoon!”

“That’s it. Such forms of adaption are widespread among living organisms that have to go through long periods of unfavourable climatic conditions — like the long, icy nights of the black planet and the hurricanes at ‘sunrise’ and ‘sunset.’ As these conditions on the planet alternate very quickliy I imagine the jelly-fish can come out of their state of lethargy as quickly as they go into it. If our assumptions are correct it will be fairly easy to restore the lethal propensities of the black medusae.”

“By providing the temperature, atmospheric, lighting and other conditions of the black planet, I suppose?”