Theorists claim a thing unexistent if it cannot be detected. The Empress of Kolain was invisible. It was undetectable to radio waves. It was in space, so no physical wave could be transmitted to be depicted as sound. Its mass was inconsiderable. Its size as cosmic sizes go was comparatively sub-microscopic, and therefore it would occult few, if any, stars. Therefore, to all intents and purposes, the Empress of Kolain was non-existent, and would remain in that state of material-non-being until it came to life again upon its landing at Venus.
Yet the Empress of Kolain existed in the minds of the men who were to find her. Like the shot unseen, fired from a distant cannon, the Empress of Kolain was coming at them with ever-mounting velocity, its unseen course a theoretical curve.
And the shi
