Avon Fantasy Reader No. 13 — page 96: what you’re looking at

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

solar system by the attraction of Xlarbti’s mass. The flame-paths, as you call them, are directed streams of energy for different purposes: the one to the sun supplies us, for instance, with heat, light, and electricity, which in turn are stored up for eventual use. | “The orange-ray that you felt is-one of our achievements. It is similar to the double-action pumps used in some of your sulphur mines, whereby a pipe is inclosed in a larger pipe, and hot water forced down through the larger tubing returns sulphur-laden through the central pipe. The orange-ray in- stantaneously dissolves any portable object up to a certain size, propels it back to Xlarbti through its center which is the reverse ray, and here reforms the object, just as you were recreated on the disk that you stood on when you regained consciousness. ~ “But I have not enough time to explain everything on Xlarbti to you; nor would you comprehend it all if I did. Your stay is almost up. “In that one -control-panel lies all the power that we have mastered,” boasted Garboreggg with supreme egotism. “It connects with the individual controls throughout Xlarbti.” “What is the purpose of some of the levers?” asked Phobar, with a des- perate hope in his thoughts. : A filament of metal whipped to the panel from the lord of Xlarbti. “This first section duplicates the control-panel that you saw in the laboratory where you opened your eyes. Do not think that you can make use of this infor- mation—in ten minutes you will be back on your Earth to deliver our com- mand. Between now and that moment you will be so closely watched that you can do nothing and will have no opportunity to try. “This first lever controls the attraction rays, the second the repulsion force. The third dial regulates the orange-ray by which you will be returned to Earth. The fourth switch directs the electrical bolt that destroyed New York City. Next it is a device that we have never had occasion to use. It releases the Krangor-wave throughout Xlarbti. Its effect is to make each atom of Xlarbti, the Sthalreh metal and everything on it become compact, to do away with the empty spaces that exist in every atom. Theoretically, it would reduce Xlarbti to a fraction of its present size, diminish its mass while its weight and gravity remained as before. | | “The next lever controls matter to be transported between here and the first laboratory. Somewhat like the orange-ray, it distintegrates the object and reassembles it here.” So that was what Phobar’s captor had been trying to do with him back there in the laboratory! “Why was I not brought here by that means?” burst out Phobar. | “Because you belong to a different universe,” answered Garboreggs. “Without experimentation, we cannot tell what natural laws of ours you would not be subject to, but this is one of them.” A gesture of irritation seemed to come from him. : “Some laws hold good in all the universes we have thus far investigated. The orange-ray, for instance, picked you up as it would have plucked one of us from the surface of Kygpton. But on Xlarbti, which is composed entirely EComichbooks;com