From all the suns about us, our space-chart showed, great masses of interstellar ships were also flashing inward into the galaxy, the first exodus of the galaxy's people from the outer suns and worlds, driven inward by the fear of these mighty invaders from the outer void who had already destroyed the galaxy's fleet, and were preparing now to grasp all our universe. Far behind us I could see the great ball of suns that was the Cancer cluster, glowing in supreme splendor at the galaxy's edge, and I knew that even now, on the worlds of those thronging suns, the great fleet of the invading serpent-creatures would be settling, would be moving to and fro, wiping out the races that thronged those worlds, wrecking and annihilating the civilizations upon them and making of all the suns and worlds of the great cluster a base for their future attacks upon and conquest of the galaxy. Could we, in any way, save ourselves from that conquest? It seemed hopeless, and now, weary as we were with crushing fatigue from the swift succession of events that had crowded upon us in the last few hours, since our discovery of the invading swarm's approach, it was with a dull despair that I watched Canopus enlargening ahead as we flashed on toward it. On between the galaxy's thronging suns we raced, our vast speed carrying us through them and through the swarming, panic-driven ships about them before they could glimpse us. Onward, inward, we flashed, veering here and there to avoid some star's far-swinging planets, dipping or rising to keep clear of the masses of traffic that were jamming the space-lanes leading inward, racing on at the same unvarying, tremendous velocity while we three in the pilot room, and the remainder of our crew beneath, strove to remain awake and conscious against the utterly crushing oppression of fatigue that pressed down upon us. At last we were flashing past the last of the suns between us and Canopus, and the great white central sun lay full before us, a gigantic globe of blazing, brilliant light. As we leapt toward it I saw Korus Kan gradually decreasing our speed, our ship slackening in its tremendous flight as we slanted down toward the planets of the great sun, and toward the inmost planet that was the center of the galaxy's government.