“More than one captain had been driven insane by contemplation of the cosmos, fantasies born in distorted minds, the product of wild radiations and wilder rumors. Things lived in space, or so it was hinted, great beings with gossamer wings which caught the light of suns and carried them like drifting smears of moonlight across the voids. And other creatures which no one living had ever seen. Ravenous beasts which lurked in space as great fish lurked in seas, waiting to rend ships and men.”