Authentic Science Fiction, No. 23 — page 24: what you’re looking at

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

44 THE SINGING SPHERES time since descending into these subterranean depths we saw —~by the light of yellow and orange spheres working there— flat surfaces. Despite their craze for curves, the inhabitants had been unable to devise any sort of bench or table that conformed to their natural preference. For a start it must have exasperated them to have objects simply rolling all over | the place. But level blocks of stone lined the tunnels where we walked, and on them rested the craziest, most complicated and most inexplicable array of apparatus I had ever dreamed of. AIL I could recognise as normal objects in a laboratory of that kind ‘4 were small, jagged pieces of brown rock, lying in stone pans. 7 So far as I could see, the only purpose served by the apparatus was to hold various substances. Crushing, heating, moulding : and mixing operations were performed by those inevitable force-beams, after which the material merely rested in tubes or open basins until ready for the next process. Here and there queer flashes occurred, whereupon the Mattus uninten- — tionally conveyed to me the workers’ reactions of disappoint- ment or gratification. } In any case there was no time for long-winded explanations, and Fuzzy-bubble hurried us along the laboratory corridors to a larger cave, where we had to turn on the gravity-reactors to climb a pronounced gradient, and eventually into another | gigantic hall lined with innumerable spheres drawn up in two | main sections. “On the left,” he said, “are those shortly to be honoured.” 4 I looked with some compassion upon the sacrificial throng. There seemed nothing to distinguish them from any other } spheres we had seen floating through their underground halls } —no special sizes or colours—and I wondered vaguely how © they had been chosen. “On the right,” continued Fuzzy-bubble, “those selected for — the duties of High Escorts—” He broke off. “We must now | join in the Ceremony of Tribute. Makkub approaches!” _ He came in, borne aloft by the six blue spheres, accom- panied by Pakkan and Zakkar, and straightway launched into a florid speech about the importance of the occasion in Kar- doon’s history and how their noble sacrifices would never be forgotten. My eyes kept roving up and down the lines of | waiting spheres and I felt slightly sick. There seemed many more than a thousand among the crowd due for “slaughter.” j THE SINGING SPHERES 45 Then he moved off again, through some aperture at the end of the hall, and the entire assembly commenced an in- tolerable screaming and ullulation of praise. Fortunately, Fuzzy-bubble indicated that we should follow the principal party and distance lessened the uproar somewhat, or we would surely have had to shut off the inter-coms. An atmosphere of tense, reverent expectation saturated the Mattus. Despite our previous conversation, I had really very little idea of how this Machine of Revelation would appear or what might happen when it commenced to work. “Why don’t they get on with it?” demanded Tubby, in a low, strained voice. Whatever his inner feelings, he had his mind on the job, however, and I could hear the built-in cameras of his suit softly whirring. Heaving ourselves into the inevitable circular entrance, with | steeply curving walls on either side, we stood upright to see that only a limited number of the elite were permitted to witness the demonstration. Broadly speaking—although we had no definite means of recognition—the audience was con- fined to Makkub, Pakkan, Zakkar and the counsellors who had perched with them on that queer throne. Then we turned to inspect the Legacy of the Wise Ones. “Now what in the name of Perishing Polaris is that sup- posed to be?” said young Hartnell, in a low voice. I wrote earlier that Kardoon’s story was far from unique in the records of the universe—how on many planets there must be relics of past civilisations long since overwhelmed by cata- strophe, leaving no trace save a crumbling monument, an in- decipherable scroll or a strange apparatus to remind later generations of their vanished glories. We ourselves had ex- perienced such things in the light-machine left by the Old Ones of Krellig If and the weird oracle which made laws for the inhabitants of Fellik. Here, also on Kardoon, rested an incomprehensible engine—and the very sight made us marvel that the spheres even guessed its purpose, much less learned how to operate it. The Machine of Revelation occupied the entire end of the . cavern. It stood fully fifty feet wide, forty feet high and ex- tended as far back as we could see. No attempt had been made to shield its working parts, and they rose in tier after ~ tier to the roof—thousands of dead-white coiled tubes, looped into one another by rows both vertical and horizontal, heaped Ecomicbooks.co