Avon Murder Mystery Monthly No. 41 — page 200: what you’re looking at

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

202 THE METAL MONSTER likened ‘to energy-made material, it was certainly akin to electro- ‘magnetic energies. _ | When, in the cataclysm, that force was diffused there had been cre- ated a magnetic field of incredible intensity; had been concentrated an electric charge of inconceivable magnitude. | | _ Discharging, it had -blasted the Monster—short-circuited ‘it, -and burned it out. But what was it that had led up to the cataclysm? What was it that had turned the Metal Monster upon itself? What disharmony had crept into that supernal order to set in motion the machinery of disintegra- tion? We could only conjecture. The cruciform Shape I have named the Keeper was the agent of the destruction—of that there could be no doubt. In the enigmatic organism which while many still was one and which, retaining its integrity as a whole could dissociate manifold parts yet still as a whole maintain an unseen contact and direction over them through miles of space, the Keeper had its place, its work, its duties. So too had that wondrous Disk whose visible and concentrate power, whose manifest leadership, had made us name it emperor. And had not Norhala ‘called the Disk—Ruler? What were the responsibilities of these twain to the mass of the or- ganism of which they were such important units? What were the laws they administered, the laws they must obey? Something certainly of that mysterious law which Maeterlinck has called the spirit of the Hive—and something infinitely greater, like that which governs the swarming sun bees of Hercules’ clustered orbs. Had there evolved within the Keeper. of the Cones—guardian and engineer as it seemed to have been—ambition? Had there risen within it a determination to wrest power from the Disk, to take its place as Ruler? Fiow else explain that conflict I had sensed when the Emperor had plucked Drake and me from the Keeper’s grip the night following the orgy of the feeding? Flow else explain that duel in the shattered Hall of the Cones. whose end had been the signal for the final cataclysm? Fiow else explain the alinement of the cubes behind the Keeper against the globes and pyramids remaining loyal to the will of the Disk? We discussed this, Ventnor and I. This world,” he mused, “is a place of struggle. Air and sea and land and all things that dwell within and on them must. battle for life. Farth not Mars is the planet of war. I have a theory”—he hesitated “that the magnetic currents which are the nerve force of ‘this globe of GOGO .S (GO)