Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 124, No. 3 — page 94: what you’re looking at

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

~ lowed it. 468 _Drake gathered himself; strained to loosen his feet from the shining surface, making ready to leap when they should draw close enough. His great chest swelled with his effort, the muscles of his neck knotted, sweat streamed down his face. ‘““No use,” he gasped, “no use, Good- win. It’s like trying to lift yourself by your boot-straps—like a fly stuck in mo- lasses! ”’ “ Ruth!” cried Ventor again. As though it had been a signal the block So near darted forward, resuming the distance it had formerly maintained be- tween us. The vanguard of the Metal Things began to race. With an incredible _ speed they fled into, were lost in an instant within, the luminous distances. The cube that bore woman and girl ac- celerated its own motion; flew faster and fasted onward. And as swiftly our own fol- The lustrous walls flowed by, dizzyingly. There was a little wailing chorus behind us. We looked—looked and shrank to- gether. Down upon us was rushing a monstrous wave, an avalanche, of the Metal Things! F ifty feet in air was: its crest—and even in that inoment of stark panic I noted with what mathematical regularity the spikes of the pyramids tipped it and with what awe- ‘some orderliness cube and sphere were placed. Half across the cleft. it stretched—not so much wave or avalanche as curtain, two hundred feet wide and a fourth of that as high. A metallic, living curtain, rushing down upon us! Closer it came and closer_—now its rigid, shining, knobbed and spiked front was al- most on us. Out of it stared the myriads of _ steady — mocking — eyes. We _ cowered, waiting for it to break over us, crush us. A movement began in it! Ball and square and angle writhed and spun and threaded. Its middle began to contract—as if an un- seen cable were drawing in its sides. There was an infinitely rapid shiftmg— The curtain was gone!. In its place, gliding after us, was a colos- sal Thing, gigantic mate to the Smiting Thing which had shattered the armored ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. men; yet not of any of its shifting shapes and to it in size as that had been to the Lilliputian of the ruins. | Difficult—difficult beyond thought is it to picture in words that prodigy following us; built though it was from most familiar forms—of nothing but globes and blocks and four-sided wedges, shapes common- place and normal. In that commonplace- ness lies the very heart of my difficulty; for from the thinking, conscious combina- tion of those curves and planes was born not a fourth dimension, but a fifth and sixth as well; yes, and more. It was their basic simplicity that pointed the lance of inexplicable terror! The ob- vious transformed into the unfathomable! ‘The height of fifty tall men it rose; tow- ering upon four slender, stiltlike legs made up of alternate spiked six-foot block and ball. These spidery legs supported a huge cylindrical body, from the top of which & quintet of the girdered cubes, each, I es- timated, twenty feet long, abruptly thrust themselves. They radiated like a five-pointed star and over their length, swarming out of the body like bees from a hiye, flashed scores of spheres and smaller blocks. With the same vertiginous rapidity that marked all the Protean changes of the Things while in combination, these clustered at the ends of the girders, shifted—at each end was now a monstrous thirty-foot wheel, their hubs the globular clusters, their spokes the cubes and their rims great, tetrahedron- tipped spheres! And all these changes had been made while still it maintained its steady, gliding pace close behind us! “Doc.” Drake’s voice was defiant. ‘“ Do you suppose this lad is entertaining us or just amusing itself?” “It’s hardly a laughing matter, Drake,” I answered, sternly—shocked by his flip- pancy. “ And not a time for levity,” I add- ed even more tartly, for suddenly the wheel- Ing crests of the Following Thing had doubled themselves, the abrupt action pull- ing every one of my nerves taut as a bow- string. His delighted grin revealed to me not only the triteness but the total inade- quacy of my rebuke. EGOHMIGOOOKSHEO we