Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 124, No. 3 — page 93: what you’re looking at

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

THE METAL MONSTER. os guardianship—the first really human im- pulse this shape of mystery and beauty had revealed. There was something in the sight that was like the touch of an awak- ening hand in nightmare, profoundly reas- suring, dulling the edge of my apprehension. In front of them swept score upon score of her familiars—no longer dully lustrous, but shining as though cut from blue and polished steel. They—marched—in ordered rows, globes and cubes and pyramids; mov- ing sedately now as units. I looked behind me; out of .the spume boiling at the portal, were pouring other scores of the Metal Things, darting through like divers through a wave! And as they drew into our wake, swam into the light, their dim lustre vanished like a film; their surfaces grew almost radiant. Whence came the light that set them gleaming? . looked about me. The walls of the cleft or tunnel were perpendicular, smooth and shining with a cold, metallic, greenish glow. Between the walls, like the rhythmic flashing of fire-flies, pulsed soft and fugitive ‘glimmerings that carried a sense of the in- finitely minute—of electrons, it came to me, rather than atoms. Their irradiance was greenish, like the walls; but I was certain that: these corpuscles did not come from _ They blinked and faded like motes within a shifting sunbeam; or, to use a more scien- tific comparison, like colloids within the illuminated field of the ultra-microscope; and like these latter it was as theugh the eye took in not the minute particles them- selves but the radiation from them. Save for these gleamings the light of the place, although crepuscular, was crystalline ~ clear. High above us—five hundred, a thousand feet—the walis merged into a haze of clouded beryl. Rock certainly the cliffs were—but rock. cut and planed, smoothed and polished and plated! Yes, that was it—plated! Plated with some metallic substance that was itself a reservoir of luminosity and from which, it came to me, pulsed the force that lighted the winking ions. But who could have done such a thing? For what purpose? How? Our pace had slackened—I 467 I became conscious of a thickening, an intensification of the magnetic flux enmesh- ing us; acutely, poignantly conscious of a sharp accentuation of every hint, every sug- gestion of contact with unknown, unhuman power, knowledge and—science! And the meticulousness, the -perfection of these smoothed cliffs struck over my nerves as no rasp could, stirring a vague resentment, an irritated desire for human inharmonies, human disorder. Absorbed in my examination I had for- gotten those who must share with me my doubts and dangers. I felt a grip on my arm; heard Drake muttering in my ear. “ If we get close enough and I can get my feet loose from this damned thing 1’1l “f What?” I gasped, blankly, startled out of my preoccupation. ‘ Jump where?” I followed his pointing finger. We were rapkiily closing upon the other cube; it was now a scant twenty paces ahead; it seemed to be stopping. Ventnor was lean- ing forward, quivering with eagerness. “ Ruth!” he called. ‘“ Ruth—are you all right?” | Slowly she turned to us—my heart gave a great leap, then seemed to stop. For her sweet face was touched with that same unearthly tranquility which was Norhala’s: in her brown eyes was a shadow of that passionless spirit brooding in Norhala’s own and her voice as she answered held within it more than echo of Norhala’s faint, far-off golden chiming! “Yes,” she sighed; “yes, Martin—have no fear for me—” And turned from us, gazing forward once more with the woman and as silent as she. I glanced covertly at Ventnor, at Drake —had I imagined, or had they too seen? Then I knew they had—for Ventnar‘s face was white to the lips, fear in his eyes; and Drake’s jaw was set, his teeth clenched, his eyes blazing with anger. ‘‘ What’s she doing to Ruth—did you see that look—” he gritted, half inarticulately. “Ruth!” There was anguish in Vent- nor’s cry. She did not turn; it was as though she had not heard him. The cubes were now not five yards apart. — COM Elooolkks.conm