Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 18, 1928 — page 59: what you’re looking at

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

BEYOND THE STARS. “Try, child. Tell them to think about themselves.” ““T see—” She stopped; then stammered. “I see—a light. A very big—light. There are people—”’ “ Men?” “Yes. Men. Three or four men. Sit- ting near a light. It shines so white. It hurts—” But she put her hand, not to her eyes but to her temple. ‘ I’m thinking to them, ‘Why can’t I see you? I want to see you!’ Wait. Now, I understand! He, some one thinks at me, ‘ 77y your teéle- scope! Haven't you a telescope? Soon you will see us. We have seen you for a very long time.’” Alice blurted out: ‘“ How long, Dolores? Ask them that.” “No,” commanded Dr. “ That’s absurd! Dolores—”’ But her hands had dropped from her fore- head. “It’s gone. I’m tired. My head is tired—” Jim drew me to the window. “ Look there! I was on watch. When this began appearing I called everybody. But then suddenly Dolores began getting the thoughts.” . The scene outside was wholly changed. Beneath us, to the sides and ahead, a gray- ness stretched, a continuous, solid grayness. Elusive, formless, colorless; and I could not guess how distant it might be save that it stretched beyond the limits of my vision. But ahead and above us, the scene was not eray. A vague, luminous quality tinged the blackness up there. Luminous, as though a vague light were reflected. There was no visible movement any- where. But presently, as one staring at a great motionless cloud will see that its shape is changing, I began to see changes. The flat gray solidity was not flat, but hugely convex. And it was slowly turning. Huge convolutions of it were slowly as a cloud bank, taking new forms. And all of it was slowly moving backward. Then we came to the end of it, Black emptiness ahead. Behind us was a gray- massed, globular cloud. Then another, its twin fellow, came rolling up beneath us in front—spread to the sides—shrank again behind us. Weatherby. changed. 857 ‘“ Molecules,” said Dr. Weatherby. “ See how. they’re dwindling!” I saw presently, swarms of them, always smaller. And ahead of us they seemed con- gealed into a gray solidity—a substance, it was passing beneath us, and to the sides. Again quite unexpectedly, my viewpoint I saw our vehicle plunging up- ward—its pointed bow held upward at an angle. A solidity was around us; to the sides, gray, smooth curtains; overhead a glow of white in a dead black void. A black void? My heart leaped. That was not blackness up there above our bow! It was blue! Color! The first sight of color! A blue vista of distance, with light up there! Light and air! Beside us the smooth gray walls were smooth no longer. Huge jagged rocks and bowlders, a precipice! We seemed in some immense canon, slowly floating upward. But it was a dwindling cafion. And then abruptly we emerged from it. I saw its walls close together beneath us. An area of gray was down there; gray, with a white light on it. The light made sharp inky shadows on a tumbling naked waste of rock. The gray area was shrinking to a blob— a blob of gray shining in a brilliant light. The scene now was again wholly differ- ent. Overhead, like a huge flat disk of sun, was the light. Directly beneath us, stretching to the horizon on both sides, lay an undulating white level surface. The single_blob of gray was down there on it, And off in the distance, where the surface seemed abruptly to end, gigantic blurs loomed into the blue sky. Dr. Weatherby was calling tower. I found him trembling with eager- ness. “‘ Leonard, I have the electro-tele- scope working. Look through it.” I gazed first through the front and over- head tower windows. The white disk filled a perceptible area of the sky. But it was not like a sun; it seemed rather a smooth, flat disk with light behind it, a white disk with a dark, narrow rim. Clear, cloudless sky was everywhere else. And very far away, behind and above the white disk, I saw a gigantic, formless, colorless shape towering into the blue of distance. me to the Gomichooks (E@)