We stood ourselves on a section of the floor at the room's very center, raised a few feet above the rest of the floor, and except for the two purple-glowing disks beneath the ascension and descension shafts the only object upon this raised portion was a great globe of what seemed misty glass, exactly like the tiny one with which the Andromedans had first communicated with us, but of vastly greater size, being some dozen feet in diameter. Toward this, as we hesitated there at the center of that gigantic assemblage of strange, silent figures, there moved the leader of the Andromedans who had accompanied us. He grasped with his two gaseous arms the metal studs that projected out from the great globe's base, and at once the misty sphere glowed with inward light, while in it appeared the thousand Andromedan ships, flashing out into the void, rescuing us from the serpent-fleet, and bringing us back into their own universe, a swift succession of explanatory scenes. This explanation completed, the Andromedan moved back from the great sphere and motioned me toward it. Slowly I stepped forward, sensing the gaze of the massed, silent thousands on me. I knew that it was the supreme moment of our mission, the moment for which we had battled our way through three universes, the chance to obtain from this great council of the Andromedans the help that might save our universe. I glanced back to the anxious faces of my friends, drew a long breath, and then grasped the two studs before me, concentrating all my thoughts on what I wished to express, as the big sphere above glowed with inward light again, the thrilling current from it rushing into my brain. In the glowing globe now appeared our universe, a great galaxy of stars floating in space like their own. Swiftly, with shifting thoughts, I showed them its throngs of peopled worlds, the traffic that swept between its suns, the ordered life of its teeming, dissimilar races. Then as my thoughts shifted again they saw the first five thousand serpent-ships rushing in upon that galaxy, destroying all our fleet and settling upon the suns and worlds of the Cancer cluster, saw us fleeing inward and then turning to capture one of the serpent-ships by boarding it in mid-space. Then, briefly, the globe flashed forth the interior of our own great Council Hall, with our Council Chief exhibiting and explaining the records of the serpent-people which we had captured in their ship. In a swift flash I explained the meaning of those records, a flash that showed the serpent-people, masters of the suns and worlds of our own universe, sailing out with increased powers to attack the Andromeda universe, and as that flashing scene showed in the great globe I saw a silent stir of excitement run through the massed thousands about me.