Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 124, No. 3 — page 107: what you’re looking at

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

sd _ rosy-gray and crystalline. _ monies—ecstatic, THE METAL MONSTER, Oval, twenty feet in height, I judged, and twelve in its greatest width, it was. A ' broad band, translucent as sun golden crysolite, ran about its periphery. Set within this elliptical zodiac and spaced at mathematically regular intervals were nine ovoids of intensely living light. They shone like nine gigantic cabochen cut sapphires; they ranged from palest, watery blue up through azure and purple and down to a ghostly mauve shot with sullen undertones of crimson. In each of them was throned a flame that seemed the very fiery essence of vitality. The—body—was convex, swelling out- ward like the boss of a shield; shimmering From the vital ovoids ran a pattern of sparklmg threads, irised and brilliant as floss of molten rain- . bows of jewels; converging with interlac- ings of spirals, of volates and of triangles into the nucleus. And that nucleus! What was it? Even —now I can but guess—brain in part as we understand brain, certainly; but far, far more than that in its energies, its powers; and indescribably different even in these activities that in our race are termed the cerebral. Like an immense rose it was; an incred- ible rose of a thousand close clustering pet- als. It blossomed with a myriad shifting hues, effulgent, rutilant. And instant by instant the flood of varicolored flame that poured into its petalings down from the sapphire ovals waxed and waned in cres- cendoes and diminuendoes of relucent har- awesome. The heart of the roSe was a star of in- candescent miby! » And from flaming crimson center to au- reat, flashing penumbra it ,was instinct with, poured forth, power>-power vast and conscious! Not with that same completeness could I realize the mimistering star shapes, half hidden as they were by the disk. But I - saw that their radiance was less, nor had they its miracle of pulsing gem fires. Blue they. were, blue of a peculiar vibrancy; blue were the glistening threads that ran down from blue-black circular convexities set within each of the points visible to me. TA 481 _ And unlike in shape, their flame of vi- tality dimmer than the ovoids of the disk’s golden zone still I knew that they were even as those—organs, organs of unknown senses, unknown potentialities. Their nu- clei I could not observe. The floating figures had drawn close te that disk—had paused. And on the mo- ment of their pausing I felt a surge of strength, a snapping of the spell that had bound us, an instantaneous withdrawal of the inhibiting force. Ventnor broke into a run, holding, I noted with a thrill of appre- hension, his rifle at the alert. We raced after him; were close to the shining shapes. And gasping, stopped short not a dozen paces away. For Norhala had soared up toward the flaming rose of the disk as though lifted by gentle, unseen hands. Close to it for an instant she swung. I saw the exquisite body gleam forth through her thin robes as though bathed in soft flames of rosy pearl. Higher she floated, and toward the night of its zodiac. From the edges of three of the ovoids swirled a little cloud of tenta- cles, gossamer filaments of opal. They whipped out a full yard from the disk’s surface, touching her, caressmg her. For but a breath she hung there,. her face hidden from us; then was dropped softly to her feet and stood, arms stretched wide, her copper hair streaming cloudily about her regal head. And up past her floated. Ruth, levitated as had been she—and her face I could see, ecstatic as though she were gazing into Paradise, and drenched with the awful tranquility of the infinite; her wide eyes stared upward toward that rose of splen- dors through which the pulsing -colors seemed now to race more swiftly. Now for an instant she hung poised before it while around her head I saw a faint aureole begin to form-——then was swung higher and toward the side as had been the woman. Again the gossamer threads thrust forth, . searched her. They ran over her rough clothing—perplexedly! They coiled about her neck, stole through her hair, brushed shut her eyes, circled her brow, her breasts, girdied her! COUMIUC DOO UN S Colin