Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 18, 1928 — page 81: what you’re looking at

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

BEYOND THE STARS. ings had them. I located it; wrenched at its bar. It yielded. J went down a curv- ing metal ladder, into the house. In a moment I had located the labo- ratory room, Our vehicle in its full normal size, lay here, dead white, an end of it tinged yellow by a shaft of moonlight. I stepped within it, went to Jim’s cup- board, lighting a tiny battery light over- head. The Frazier weapon I sought, was here. Its copite cone, with smooth glisten- ing bone handle; the women, coptie head- band; the tiny pulse-motor; the wires; it was all complete. A triumph swept me. I was unarmed no longer. Playing a lone hand, here in this strange world; a man, comparatively of giant strength and physical power. But I was more than that now. I had a mental weapon, and the mental strength to use it. I' did not stop to adjust the apparatus; I wound it up in its wire, and hastily re- treated. I reached the street; with the weapon under my cloak, I hurried back to the castle over the same route; I did not want to chance losing my way. But as I advanced, I had more than memory of the streets to guide me. From the direction of the castle, a blur of cries was audible, a hum, a murmur, which as I progressed resolved itself into shouts. The shouting of a mob; heavy, angry voices of men; shrill cries of girls—a single, long, agonized scream of a girl. I was on a lower street that fronted the water; a side entrance to the castle grounds was before me; through the trees I could see the frowning turreted walls of the castle. I stopped to adjust my weapon. It took no more than a moment. Around my forehead, with hat discarded, I bound the headband, a narrow strip of finely woven copite wire, with two small elec- trodes pressing my temples. On the right side two finely drawn silk- insulated wires dangled from the headband to my neck; I tucked them under my shirt, over my shoulder, down my right arm to the wrist. A band at my wrist, to which the wires were attached, held the tiny pulse- motor in place. My heart set it in motion, to generate the necessary current. The Frazier projector was a copite. cone, this one some ten inches long; its shape was a cone section, one end—the muzzle— with an open diameter of six inches, the other end, one-fifth inch, across which the diaphragm was fitted. The bone handle screwed into place at the diaphragm. It was hollow; within it were amplifying tubes, and a transformer, miracles of smallness. The whole projector weighed some twenty Troy ounces. I plugged the two connecting wires from my wristband to its butt, gripped the handle, with my index finger along its side, resting on the trigger button. I was ready! My heart was racing. The tiny motor at my wrist was racing; I could feel the hum of the current, the prickling of it under the forehead band, its tiny stabbing throb at the electrodes pressing my temples. There was power within me. I had flung off my cloak; I stood in the white silk shirt, dark, short, tight trousers, and high, heavy, black stockings of my earth costume—stood with outfiung arms for an instant and exulted in the wave of triumph which swept me. Against. these people, the power of my weapon would be invincible. Furtive no longer, I advanced with bold, open strides to the gate of the castle grounds. A few men were there, evidently about to enter. They stared at me. Be- fore the strangeness of my aspect, the bold- ness of my flashing glance, they quailed, cried with fear and scattered before me. I did not heed them. Beyond the gate, back from the water there was a rise of ground. I mounted it, and from the thicket of flowers that ornamented its top, gazed out at the moonlight scene. Between my hillock and the foot of the broad staircase leading up the terrace to the castle entrance, a throng of men were standing. Spectators, standing idle; occasionally a group of them would surge in one direction or other, milling about some individual who seemed abruptly determined upon a course of action; a mob without a leader; excited, aimless, striving for points of vantage to see what was taking place in front. TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT WEEK Gomichooks 879 (E)