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There was nothing extraordinary about our family; only in my case were replacements somewhat above the world average. I am proud to say that I was among the first thousand who made the pioneer voyage on hyperdrive to the star group beyond Centaurus.
In this case the central condensation of stars presents an almost uniform blaze of light. Like the Hercules cluster, that in Centaurus is surrounded with stars scattered over a broad field and showing an appearance of radial arrangement. In fact, except for its greater richness, Omega Centauri is an exact duplicate of its northern rival.
Some might be in the form of a wreath, like our own; some might be globular, like the great star-clusters in Hercules and Centaurus; some might be glittering circles, or disks, or rings within rings.
In our eyes, their bodies are misshapen, composed of elements most of which are not found in our world. There are many cold places, or sun spots, on Alpha Centaurus, but these are shunned by the people as death traps. However, the centers of population gather on the more solid sections, most of which lie around the sun spots.
You may imagine that these people of Alpha Centaurus are idlers, being fed by the ceaseless heat waves that beat upon them. Such a conception is totally false, for I saw that industry was plainly evident, and labor had its reward in securing the necessaries and luxuries of life.
Although the awful burnings had been in progress for thousands of years, I could see no fuel that was added to the flames. Hence I was driven to believe that Alpha Centaurus was on fire and was gradually being consumed; this must be true of all the stars that bedeck the canopy of Heaven. The inconstancy of this star's surface is the greatest menace to its inhabitants.
As this particular star is the brightest in the constellation Centaurus, it is called Alpha Centauri; and if ever you travel into the Southern Hemisphere and see it, you may greet it as our nearest neighbour in the starry universe, so far as we know at present.
I visited Uranus and Neptune, after which I stretched my swift wings for the great flight, away from our Solar System, over billions of miles of space. I alighted on the burning star nearest to our Earth. This star is called, by our astronomers, Alpha Centaurus, and it is said to be 20,000,000,000,000 miles away.
After my profitable stay in this immense solar system in the Milky Way, I crossed the vast dome of the heavens and lighted on Sirius, the brightest star in all the canopy of night. Here I found the fire life of Alpha Centaurus repeated, but I did not pause to study the odd phases presented to my view. Onward I moved to survey the remarkable systems of worlds that revolve around Sirius.
One ending had the Platform fail due to sabotage, and the hero played by an actor who had interrupted his seventh honeymoon to play the part splendidly prepared to build it all over again. The second ending closed with the Platform headed for Alpha Centaurus which was hardly the intention of anybody outside of filmdom.
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