I nodded, without speaking, straining my gaze into the void ahead, where our scouting-ships and those of the serpent-fleet were, I knew, already whirling and stabbing at each other, while in toward them were moving the main masses of the two vast armadas. Hardly more than an inch's gap lay between those two fleets on the space-chart, now, and as I gazed ahead I saw the fighting scout-ships coming into view before us, a long, thin line of battle extending across the void before us and made up of gleaming oval serpent-craft and flat Andromedan ships, dipping and striking and soaring there before us. Fiercely those advance-ships of the two mighty fleets were grappling there, scores of them reeling aimlessly away as the pale beams swept them or crumpling suddenly up as the invisible but deadly force-shafts struck them. But I was looking beyond them, now, looking beyond them to where, between them and the galaxy's suns, a gigantic, far-flung swarm of shining light-points was rushing toward us. "The serpent-fleet!" I whispered. On it was coming toward us, even as we moved toward it, the long line of struggling, raging scout-ships between our advancing fleets. Swiftly it was changing from a swarm of innumerable light-points to a swarm of vaguely glimpsed shapes that grew larger, clearer, with every moment that they neared us, thousands upon tens of thousands of great oval ships, flashing toward us in a mighty rectangle! Toward it our own vast pyramid of ships was rushing in turn, and then the struggling scouts ahead had flashed back to rejoin their respective fleets, and with only empty space between them now the two titanic armadas were thundering toward each other! The Armageddon of our universes had begun! * * * * * Swiftly, as our vast fleet leapt forward through the void, my fingers were pressing the keys before me, and instantly our massed thousands of ships had shifted from their pyramidal formation into one of two long and mighty columns, racing forward side by side. Nearer the colossal rectangle of the serpent-fleet was rushing toward us--nearer with each instant, until it seemed that the two vast armadas must crash into each other and destroy each other. Bending tensely over my keys I saw their huge fleet looming before us, an enormous, close-massed swarm of great oval hulls rushing lightning-like toward us. Then, just before they reached us, I pressed a single key.