Renn Bose came running up to meet them, panting for breath. The friends surrounded the physicist who told them in a few words the unprecedented news — the first contact between two gigantic stellar islands.

“I hoped to get here before the take-off,” said Renn Bose, sadly, “to tell Erg Noor about it. While he was still on the black planet he realized that the spiral disc had come from a far distant world, a completely alien world, and that the strange ship had been flying for a long time in the Cosmos.”

“Will Erg Noor never know that the spiral disc has come from such tremendous depths of the Universe, that it has come from another galaxy, from the Andromeda Nebula?” asked Veda. “What a pity that he did not hear today’s reception!”

“He’ll hear about it!” said Darr Veter, with confidence. “We’ll ask the Council to sanction power for a special transmission. I’ll call the spaceship through Satellite 36. Lebed will be within range of our transmitters for another nineteen hours!”