FOREWORD
Late in the Twentieth Century Man, for the first time, burst through the invisible barrier that had always kept him chained to his planet. A new and almost uncharted ocean lay before him, its vastness illimitable, its mysteries as yet unexplored. Magellan, Columbus, Leif Ericsson—these primitives expected great wonders as the searoads opened before the prows of their ships. But the first spacemen thought—mistakenly, as it proved—that the airless void between the worlds could hold little unknown to them.
They did not foresee that actual experience of a thing is far different from abstract knowledge of it. They did not foresee the death that leaped upon them from the outer dark, the strange, enigmatic horror that killed men without leaving trace or clue. The ships came back, crews decimated. Out there lay a menace that slew with blind, ravening fury.
For a time space held its secret. And then the Varra spoke to us, warned us, told us why space was forbidden.
The Varra—glowing balls of light that hung in the void, vortices of electro-magnetic energy, alive and intelligent. For generations, they said, they had tried to communicate with us. But they could not exist except in airless space, or under specialized conditions. They were not protoplasmic in nature; they were beings of pure energy. But they were intelligent and friendly.
From them we learned the nature of the menace. A race of beings dwelt on Pluto, so different from both humanity and the Varra that they were almost inconceivable. This race had never mastered space travel; it had no need to leave its dark world. Only the immense power of the Plutonians’ minds reached out through the void, vampiric, draining the life-energy from living organisms over incredible distances. Like medieval robber-barons they laired on their planet, and the tentacles of their minds reached impalpably out for prey. Vampires of energy.
Vampires of life.
But the Varra they could not touch or harm. The peculiar physical structure of the Varra rendered them safe from the Plutonian creatures.
A World Fleet was sent out to subdue Pluto, against the advice of the Varra. It did not return.
In the end we made a pact with the Varra. They conveyed us through space, protecting us, as far as they were able, from the Plutonian vampires, though they did not always succeed. Each man who ventured into the void was guarded and guided by a Varra, and therefore many lived who would otherwise have died. No ship went beyond the orbit of Neptune; even that was dangerous. No ship ever landed on Pluto.
Only those guarded by the Varra were permitted to leave Earth. For the rest—space was forbidden.