Amazing Stories, Vol. 2, No. 2 — page 100: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

204 FE directed her to the miniature silver salvers and she helped herself to some honey and fruit. The doctor adjusted the receivers on his head and tried the different degrees of amplifica- tion. Now her voice sounded rich and clear, al- though her phonic pronunciation made it difficult for him at times. Presently she sang in her own language and it sounded like the old love dirges that he had heard his mother sing when he was a child. He felt drawn toward this little creature; it was no longer her scientific knowledge that ap- pealed to him. Just to have her near with her earthly feelings of tiredness and hunger would satisfy all the desires of his life. _ “TI must sleep now,” she said. ‘When I awake I will show you how to dematerialize, and if you like, materialize again as small as I am now.” Going to her ivory box she pulled up a telescopic pedestal until it stood an inch and a half high. Then waving good-night she turned a sunken switch and from the pedestal a dome-shaped foun- tain of blue flame shot up and curved over until it touched the insulating sheet spread like a carpet beneath box and furniture. The fountain of flame hid everything beneath it so that he could no longer watch her movements. Taking up a metal paper knife, he touched the dome of flame and saw the blade disappear like solder in an oxyacety- line torch. Glass, ivory, carbon and even asbestos disappeared before that deadly destroyer. Idly he took up a flashlight and turned its beam on the dome of fire. To his utter astonishment it pene- trated the opaque flame and revealed everything beneath. The little creature was there, a perfect image of beauty, under the dome of fire. He sat down in a chair, clutching the flashlight con- vulsively. His heart raced so that he almost lost consciousness. Little did he realize that the pent- up love of centuries was being unloosed upon him. Without thinking, he kept pressing the button of the flashlight and sending flashes of light about AMAZING STORIES the room. So absorbed had he become that he did not notice the room filling with shadowy forms. They looked at him vengefully and if it had not been for the flickering flashlight, which they did not understand, he would surely have been elim- inated from the face of the earth. One of them pointed her finger at the glass cabinet: a little spurt of flame shot out and the cabinet was de- stroyed as if it had never been, but the little dome of blue flame continued untouched, immune. Then one of the figures, resembling a middle-aged woman, spread an insulating sheet on the table beside the original with its edge overlapping. A companion passed her a square white box, similar to the first, and she stood on it and materialized. Then she pulled up the pedestal and started a dome of flame so near the other that it mingled with it, forming an oval. It was evident that only flame could touch flame. The fire vanished sud- denly,. revealing the elder of the two little figures holding the younger by the wrist. In a moment both had dematerialized and gone completely, leav- ing only the original white ivory case standing on the insulating sheet. : Bitterly he reproached himself for not having tried to protect her from her own people. But he felt the uselessness of trying to match his brains against these super-Amazons. Full well he knew that they could have destroyed him in an instant had they wished. Later the doctor tried to X-ray the little box, but found it perfectly opaque to the very strongest rays capable of penetrating even thin lead and thicker steel. He has not tried to turn on the flame for fear of doing untold damage with a power as yet unknown on earth. Many, many nights has he waited in vain for the reappearance of his visitor, but doubtless her friends are reminding her that she belongs to the star of dead love and that there must be no retrogression. 3 THE END. TTT THIS In this department we shall discuss, every month, topics of interest to readers. subjects directly or indirectly related to the stories appearing in this magazine. nominal fee of 25c to cover time and postage is required. UNSCIENTIFIC WORLD OF OURS The editors invite correspondence on all In case a special personal answer is required, a Editor, AMAZING STORIES: I have been buying this magazine for sev- eral months and I feel that it fills a most important yet hitherto much neglected chan- nel in current literature. Most of the sug- gestions I might venture would but repeat those which have already desired, improve- ments in the journal’s physical make-up, a change of title or a subtitle—Futurist Stor- ies, Scientific Imagination Stories, New Science and New Life Stories. In my opinion most of the stories fail to embrace more than a Jimited field of scien- tific progress. Most of the story tellers ex- ercise imagination upon physical or chemical discoveries or inventions. But discovery and invention must in the future touch a wide array of interests which are the espe- cial province of the psychologist, the sociolo- gist, the industrialist, the human engineer. . The specialties of these and other scientists offer great realms for the disciplined imag- ination to work and peer ahead. Of all the 1,740 millions of people now on the earth, some at least students and witnesses of the scientific progress in physics within the past century, comparatively few know the ele- ments of science. Edison truly says that it is untrue to call this a scientific age. The potential scientific capacities of great num- bers of Europeans and North Americans have not yet been moved to action. The splendid mental endowments of vast popu- lations in China, India, South America, Africa, have scarcely been touched by science. Yet we possess now a universal and instantaneous system of communication, we have resources which conquer the adver- sities, diseases and obstructions of climate, It is pure flattery, illusion, unrealistic bias. which assumes, as is so constantly being done, that these powers are rightly and ade- quately released or effective even in our home environs; urban or rural. Wells con- sequently has quit the narrow range of phy- sical advance and now looks to parallel progress in mental and social affairs. Let us have some of the benign as well as of the grewsome. Vigor and abandon are not the exclusive ‘qualities of criminals and fools. Grown up minds also let themselves go for happy results. DaniEL D. Moroney, Brooklyn, N. Y. {Our correspondent does not know the trouble and time we devoted to the selection of the name AMAZING STORIES. We obtain- ed suggestions from many variously quali- fied people, scientific and literary, and se- lected the one you dislike. ~ We know and sadly realize that the world at large is lacking in scientific knowledge and the work which is requisite to get a comprehensive view of any one branch, not to speak of the other divisions. But our stories are in all of these branches, ento- mology, paleantology, chemistry, natural his- tory among many while also television, tele- pathy, psychology and physiology are to be found treated. : Letters such as this are much appreciated and are one of tke cree cOmiCcbOoks.coim