"As I have said, this nebula, this gigantic globe of flaming gas, lies practically motionless in space at the heart of our Galaxy. A few weeks ago, however, it was discovered by our astronomers that the great flaming sphere of the nebula had begun slowly to revolve, to spin, and that as the days went by it was spinning faster and faster. Through the weeks since then our astronomers have watched it closely, and ever faster it has spun, until now it is revolving at a terrific rate, a rate that is still steadily increasing. And that accelerating spin of the huge nebula must result, inevitably, in the doom of our universe. "For our scientists have calculated that within two more weeks the nebula's rate of spin will have become so great that it will no longer be able to hold together, that it will disintegrate, break up, its gigantic masses of incandescent gases flying off in all directions like the pieces of a bursting fly-wheel. And those colossal clouds of flaming gas, flying out through our Galaxy, our universe, will inevitably sweep over and destroy countless thousands of our suns and worlds, annihilating the worlds like midgets in candle-flame, changing the suns into nebulous masses of flaming gas like themselves, smashing gigantically through and across the Galaxy and destroying the gravitational balance of its whirling suns and worlds until in a great chaos of crashing stars and planets our universe ends as a vast, cosmic wreck, our organizations and our civilizations gone forever!" The Council Chief paused for a moment, and in that moment there was silence over all the great hall, a silence unnatural, terrible, unbroken by any slightest sound. I saw the members about me leaning forward, gazing tensely toward the Council Chief, and when he spoke again his words seemed to come to us through that strained silence as though from some remoteness of distance. "Terrible as this peril is," he was saying, "we must face it. Flight is impossible, for where could we flee? We have but one chance to save ourselves, our universe, and that is to halt the spinning of the great nebula before the few days left us have passed, before this cosmic cataclysm takes place. Some extraordinary force or forces have set the great nebula to spinning thus, and if we could venture out to the nebula, discover the nature of those forces, we might be able to counteract them, to stop the nebula's spin and save our suns and worlds.