SOURCE: The Big Jump by Leigh Brackett (Space Stories  February 1953 )

DESCRIPTION: "In a cloud they came, whirling upward through the white aurora. And they were whiter; they were pure with primal radiance, and their raying arms were like the misty nebulae. Soaring they came, carried up on the waves of fire, and they paled it. Laughing they came, ad their laughter was the laughter of young things fresh and new from the hand of God, not knowing any darkness...The laughter was soundless, but it was there. It was in the way they moved and shone and gave forth...(The Big Jump by Leigh Brackett)

NOTES: The Transuranae are beings made of primal energy. They give off radiation which infuses humans with a strange energy, even moving the body in death. The effect is addictive, undeniable. The Transuranae live on the second planet in the system of Barnard's Star.

HISTORY: Brackett writes a good novel about getting to the far end of the universe to meet a mysterious creature like later novels such as Contact by Carl Sagan. her own Alpha Centauri or Die! also uses this plot structure. The Transuranae remind me of the creatures in Clark ashton Smith's "City of the Singing Flame' with their irresistible draw.

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