Air Wonder Stories, May 1930 — page 54: what you’re looking at

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

is ~ MATT) oh wee AIR WONDER STORIES moment—at least I- suppose. inaudible communication passed between them—then. he continued on across the room, At the far side, we passed through another oval, and stood within the room that was our destination, This room was. entirely different from: any ‘we. saw- during our stay in that vibratory world. Its walls were a dull, opaque black; yet, paradoxically, from them seemed to come a strange, opalescent radiance, The room was bare, devoid of any furni- ture except for a small platform in the center, upon which stood two small, short-legged stools, Between the stools was a most intricate and complex device; from which wires led to one of the walls. A Strange Experience S the big-head commanded Vachell to be seated on one of the stools, the latter eyed the strange device between them rather dubiously. “What'll it do—whatever your name is?” he asked hesitantly. - “Tt is a device for-visual thought transference,” came the mental reply, which all of us caught. “It will do you no. harm, T have no name; Iam known by my number, 28L37426X9108A- 27.” And again came the command for Vachell to sit on the stool, After the scientist had mounted the platform and seated him- self, 283L—as.we thought of the big-head after that—placed a strange glass hood over Vachell’s head and eyes, and a similar device on his own huge cranium, and settled hack on his: stool. I shall never know, except in a general way, what thoughts passed between those two minds, Vachell, some time later, out- lined briefly what had been asked of him, and the answers he had given. It is from that outline that I have my information. When the two were seated, Vachell was directed to form a mental picture of all that bad happened in connection with our coming, to that world. He began at the beginning, with the week the four of us had spent in the hills, and, step by step, went through the entire story up to our arrival im the glass city. When he had finished, he pictured the world in a state of chaos and devastation as the result of Demetriovich’s assump- tion of authority, and his subsequent mismanagement of the nations, And finally, he. made a plea for aid in returning to our vibratory plane, and fighting against the Russian, Vachell, after a few moments of waiting, received a thought picture of himself making his plea before a strange, monstrous creature who seemed to be nothmg but head. So far as Vachell could see, the creature consisted of a great, fleshy, spheroidal mass, covered by a dead-white membrane, tmbroken save for two huge, lidless eyes near the top, and a small, red. orifice at its base. The-thought was. repeated; then 28L raised his metal cap, and bade Vachell do likewise. At the big-head’s direction, then, the three of us seated our- selves onthe platform that he and Vachell had just quitted, facing the wall that was connected with the thought-transfer- ence device, Suddenly the room was. plunged into darkness, the walls no longer emitting their opalescent light. As we sat there watching, waiting, we heard—no, rather sensed, a vast, roaring, rushing sound, a somehow orderly . chaos, as though all vibrations of every octave were loosed at once—concentrated—hurling themselves through our minds. Thea, from the black wall before us strearned a brilliant radi- ance, flecked with minute, darting lights. In some. unnatural way it seemed to pass through us, as light-streams through a window pane—as though we were transparent! HEN sfowly, but with ever increasing rapidity, we began to move forward!. The wall opened up before us into a light-flooded, tmthinkably vast tunnel. Along this tunnel we moved, swept on by: that. cosmic hurricane of sound. But were we moving? I cannot say. Paradoxically, I seemed to be seated on-that platform in the room—and yet, seemed to a moving. miles and miles out through that tunnel of sound, that tumult of vibration. I hesitate to record this, but—I gained the distinct impression that I was at one and the same time, seated in the room, and yet was—stretched—through the miles of the tunnel’s- space, Gradually the tempestuous roaring lost some of its force; slowly it abated, and—died. And our own movement through the-tunnel ceased. Then, as never before, I was conscious of that utter annihilation of distance, that inexplicable projection of myself across the miles. The tunnel had ended in a great, dome-ceilinged chamber, In the center of the chamber, floating stationary in midair, was a cloud of mist. As we entered the room, the. mist, swirling and twisting, drew aside, revealing the white-skinned, bodyless brain-being. As we stared at the amazing spectacle in awe, we somehow felt that we were in the presence of infinite wisdom, of un- paralleled knowledge. “God!” exclaimed Harwood.in a hushed whisper, for the first time breaking the silence. “Can all this be—’ The whisper died-on his lips as the mist that had surrounded the brain-being drifted down and encircled us. It seemed to gather around, and congeal upon Vachell; arose, then, with the scientist in its grasp, and swept up toward the entity from which it had come; bore him, or the strange projection of him—for he was still beside: me in the black room—entirely enveloped by itself, up, up, until he was. face to face with the super-intelligence of that vibratory world. As Vachell described it later, he experienced a singular draining sensation, as though all knowledge, all power of thought was being drawn from him. This endured for a mo- ment; then Vachell was. replaced at our side, Back to Their World returned to the room by tke same path over “which we had come. We seemed to remain stationary, shrink- ing while the tunnel whirled past zs, And finally, that unnatural extension of each-of us was no more; and we were back in the lightless room, facing the blank, black wall, T cleared my throat to speak; heard Harwood stirring rest- lessly; Vachell laid silencing-hands on our shoulders. “Not yet, Taylor,-Harwood,” he murmured, “More to fol- low.” Tensely we waited, scarcely breathing, Then a dim, lumi- nous haze appeared where the tunnel had been, That haze grew—resolved ‘itself into an image of the brain-being. T he picture dimmed for a moment, vague, formless; then, in its place we saw—ourselves, each: surrounded by a colorless cloud of misty light! Behind us, less distinctly outlined, were those who had remained on the island, similarly surrouned by nebu- lous clouds of radiance. In the ‘hand of each of us was clutched a long, slender, metal rod with a white glass ball at one end, Then we saw Demetriovich’s cone sweeping down, a white vibratory ray darting foward us. The ray, striking the clouds that surrounded us, was either deflected or. nullified, for it accomplished nothing. And ‘then, from the balls on our slender reds’ flashed beams of almost invisible force. They came in contact with the cone, and burned through and through it. It crashed to the earth, riddled with holes, a useless wreck. With that the image vanished; and in a moment the room was again flooded with light. 28L gave mental expression to his approval as he led us from the room. When we were alone in the quarters that the big-head. assigned ‘to us, we likewise gave expression to our ‘satisfaction and joy, but in a far more demonstrative manner. The Russian and his works would be destroyed, and the world would be saved! Not once did it occur to us to doubt the abifity of these creatures to do what they promised. Harwood had taken ‘little part in our rejoicing, When Vachell questioned him about this, he replied: