Close beside us was one of the cyclopean columns. We crept to it;
crouched at its base opposite the drift of the Metal People; strove,
huddled there, to regain our shaken poise. Like bagatelles we felt in
that tremendous place, the weird luminaries gleaming above like garlands
of frozen suns, the enigmatic hosts of animate cubes and spheres and
pyramids trooping past.
They ranged in size from shapes yard-high to giants of thirty feet or
more. They paid no heed to us, did not stop; streaming on, engrossed in
whatever mysterious business was summoning them. And after a time their
numbers lessened; thinned down to widely separate groups, to stragglers;
then ceased. The hall was empty of them.
As far as the eye could reach the columned spaces stretched. I was
conscious once more of that unusual flow of energy through every vein
and nerve.
“Follow the crowd!” said Drake. “Do you feel just full of pep and
ginger, by the way?”
“I am aware of the most extraordinary vigor,” I answered.
“Some weird joint,” he mused, looking about him. “Wonder if they have
any windows? This whole place looked solid to me--what I could see of
it. Wonder if we'll get up against it for air? These Things don't need
it, that's sure. Wonder--”
He broke off staring fascinatedly at the pillar behind us.
“Look here, Goodwin!” There was a tremor in his voice. “What do you make
of THIS?”
I followed his pointing finger; looked at him inquiringly.
“The eyes!” he said impatiently. “Don't you see them? The eyes in the
column!”
And now I saw them. The pillar was a pale metallic blue, in color a
trifle darker than the Metal Folk. All within it were the myriads of
tiny crystalline points that we had grown to know were the receptors
of some strange sense of sight. But they did not sparkle as did those
others; they were dull, lifeless. I touched the surface. It was smooth,
cool--with none of that subtle, warm vitality that pulsed through all
the Things with which I had come in contact. I shook my head, realizing
as I did so what a shock the incredible possibility he had suggested had
given me.
“No,” I said. “There is a resemblance, yes. But there is no force about
this--stuff; no life. Besides, such a thing is utterly incredible.”
“They might be--dormant,” he suggested stubbornly. “Can you see any mark
of their joining--if they ARE the cubes?”
Together we scanned the pillar minutely. The faces seemed unbroken,
continuous; there was no trace of those thin and shining lines that
marked the juncture of the cubes when they had clicked together to form
the bridge of the abyss or that had gleamed, crosslike, upon the back of
the combined four upon which we had followed Norhala.
“It's a sheer impossibility. It's madness to think such a thing, Drake!”
I exclaimed, and wondered at my own vehemence of denial.
“Maybe,” he shook his head doubtfully. “Maybe--but--well--let's be on
our way.”
We strode on, following the direction the Metal Folk had gone. Clearly
Drake was still doubtful; at each pillar he hesitated, scanning it
closely with troubled eyes.
But I, having determinedly dismissed the idea, was more interested
in the fantastic lights that flooded this columned hall with their
buttercup radiance. They were still and unwinking; not disks, I could
see now, but globes. Great and small, they floated motionless, their
rays extending rigidly and as still as the orb that shed them.
Yet rigid as they were there was nothing about either rays or orbs that
suggested either hardness or the metallic. They were vaporous, soft as
St. Elmo's fire, the witch lights that cling at times to the spars of
ships, weird gleaming visitors from the invisible ocean of atmospheric
electricity.
When they disappeared, as they did frequently, it was instantaneously,
completely, with a disconcerting sleight-of-hand finality. I noted,
though, that when they did vanish, immediately close to where they
had been other orbs swam forth with that same astonishing abruptness;
sometimes only one, larger it might be than that which had gone;
sometimes a cluster of smaller globes, their frozen, crocused rays
impinging.
What could they be, I wondered--how fixed, and what the source of
their light? Products of electro-magnetic currents and born of the
interpenetration of such streams flowing above us? Such a theory might
account for their disappearance, and reappearance, shiftings of the
flows that changed the light producing points of contact. Wireless
lights? If so here was an idea that human science might elaborate if
ever we returned to--
“Now which way?” Drake broke in upon my musing. The hall had ended. We
stood before a blank wall vanishing into the soft mists hiding the roof
of the chamber.
“I thought we had been going along the way They went,” I said in
amazement.
“So did I,” he answered. “We must have circled. They never went through
THAT unless--unless--” He hesitated.
“Unless what?” I asked sharply.
“Unless it opened and let them through,” he said. “Have you forgotten
those great ovals--like cat's eyes that opened in the outer walls?” he
added quietly.
I HAD forgotten. I looked again at the wall. Certainly it was smooth,
lineless. In one unbroken, shining surface it rose, a facade of polished
metal. Within it the deep set points of light were duller even than they
had been in the pillars; almost indeed indistinguishable.
“Go on to the left,” I said none too patiently. “And get that absurd
notion out of your head.”
“All right.” He flushed. “But you don't think I'm afraid, do you?”
“If what you're thinking were true, you'd have a right to be,” I replied
tartly. “And I want to tell you I'D be afraid. Damned afraid.”
For perhaps two hundred paces we skirted the base of the wall. We came
abruptly to an opening, an oblong passageway fully fifty foot wide by
twice as high. At its entrance the mellow, saffron light was cut off as
though by an invisible screen. The tunnel itself was filled with a dim
grayish blue luster. For an instant we contemplated it.
“I wouldn't care to be caught in there by any rush,” I hesitated.
“There's not much good in thinking of that now,” said Drake, grimly.
“A few chances more or less in a joint of this kind is nothing between
friends, Goodwin; take it from me. Come on.”
We entered. Walls, floor and roof were composed of the same substance as
the great pillars, the wall of the outer chamber; filled like them with
dimmed replicas of the twinkling eye points.
“Odd that all the places in here are square,” muttered Drake. “They
don't seem to have used any spherical or pyramidal ideas in their
building--if it is a building.”
It was true. All was mathematically straight up and down and across. It
was strange--still we had seen little as yet.
There was a warmth about this passageway we trod; a difference in the
air of it. The warmth grew, a dry and baking heat; but stimulative
rather than oppressive. I touched the walls; the warmth did not come
from them. And there was no wind. Yet as we went on the heat increased.
The passageway turned at a right angle, continuing in a corridor
half its former dimensions. Far away shone a high bar of pale yellow
radiance, rising like a pillar of light from floor to roof. Toward it,
perforce, we trudged. Its brilliancy grew greater.
A few paces away from it we stopped. The yellow luminescence streamed
through a slit not more than a foot wide in the wall. We were in a
cul-de-sac for the opening was not wide enough for either Drake or me
to push through. Through it with the light gushed the curious heat
enveloping us.
Drake walked to the opening, peered through. I joined him.
At first all that I could see was a space filled with the saffron
lambency. Then I saw that this was splashed with tiny flashes of the
jewel fires; little lances and javelin thrusts of burning emeralds and
rubies; darting gem hard flames rose scarlet and pale sapphire; quick
flares of violet.
Into my sight through the irised, crocus mist swam the radiant body of
Norhala!
She stood naked, clad only in the veils of her hair that glowed now
like spun silk of molten copper, her strange eyes wide and smiling, the
galaxies of tiny stars sparkling through their gray depths.
And all about her swirled a countless host of the Little Things!
From them came the gem fires piercing the aureate mists. They played
and frolicked about her in scores of swiftly forming, swiftly changing,
goblin shapes. They circled her feet in shining, elfin rings; then
opening into flaming disks and stars, shot up and spun about the white
miracle of her body in great girdles of multi-colored living fires.
Mingled with disk and star were tiny crosses gleaming with sullen, deep
crimsons and smoky orange.
A flash of blue incandescence and a slender pillared shape leaped from
the floor; became a coronet, a whirling, flashing halo toward which
streamed up the flaming tendrilings of her tresses. Other halos circled
her arms and breasts; they spun like bracelets about the outstretched
arms.
Then like a swiftly rushing wave a host of the Little Things thrust
themselves up, covered her, hid her in a coruscating cloud.
I saw an exquisite arm thrust itself from their clinging, wave gaily;
saw her glorious head emerge from the incredible, the seething draperies
of living jewels. I heard her laughter, sweet and golden and far away.
Goddess of the Inexplicable! Madonna of the Metal Babes!
The Nursery of the Metal People!
Norhala was gone, blotted out from our sight! Gone too were the bar of
light and the chamber into which we had been peering. We stared at a
smooth, blank wall. With that same ensorcelled swiftness the wall had
closed even as we had stared through it; closed so quickly that we had
not seen its motion.
I gripped Drake; shrank with him into the farthest corner--for on the
other side of us the wall was opening. First it was only a crack; then
rapidly it widened. There stretched another passageway, luminous and
long; far down it we glimpsed movement. Closer that movement came,
grew plainer. Out of the mistily luminous distances, three abreast and
filling the corridor from side to side, raced upon us a company of the
great spheres!
Back we cowered from their approach--back and back; arms outstretched,
pressing against the barrier, flattening ourselves against the shock of
the destroying impact menacing.
“It's all up,” muttered Drake. “No place to run. They're bound to smash
us. Stick close, Doc. Get back to Ruth. Maybe I can stop them!”
Before I could check him, he had leaped straight in the path of the
rushing globes, now a scant twoscore yards away.
The globes stopped--halted a few feet from him. They seemed to
contemplate us, astonished. They turned upon themselves, as though
consulting. Slowly they advanced. We were pushed forward and lifted
gently. Then as we hung suspended, held by that force which always I can
liken only to myriads of tiny invisible hands, the shining arcs of their
backs undulated beneath us.
Their files swung around the corner and marched down the passage by
which we had come from the immense hall. And when the last rank had
passed from under us we were dropped softly to our feet; stood swaying
in their wake.
A curious frenzy of helpless indignation shook me, a rage of humiliation
obscuring all gratitude I should have felt for our escape. Drake's eyes
blazed wrath.
“The insolent devils!” He raised clenched fists. “The insolent,
domineering devils!”
We stared after them.
Was the passage growing narrower--closing? Even as I gazed I saw it
shrink; saw its walls slide silently toward each other. I pushed Drake
into the newly opened way and sprang after him.
Behind us was an unbroken wall covering all that space in which but a
moment before we had stood!
Is it to be wondered that a panic seized us; that we began to run
crazily down the alley that still lay open before us, casting over
our shoulders quick, fearful glances to see whether that inexorable,
dreadful closing was continuing, threatening to crush us between these
walls like flies in a vise of steel?
But they did not close. Unbroken, silent, the way stretched before us
and behind us. At last, gasping, avoiding each other's gaze, we paused.
And at that very moment of pause a deeper tremor shook me, a trembling
of the very foundations of life, the shuddering of one who faces the
inconceivable knowing at last that the inconceivable--IS.
For, abruptly, walls and floor and roof broke forth into countless
twinklings!
As though a film had been withdrawn from them, as though they had
awakened from slumber, myriads of little points of light shone forth
upon us from the pale-blue surfaces--lights that considered us, measured
us--mocked us.
The little points of living light that were the eyes of the Metal
People!
This was no corridor cut through inert matter by mechanic art; its
opening had been caused by no hidden mechanisms! It was a living
Thing--walled and floored and roofed by the living bodies--of the Metal
People themselves.
Its opening, as had been the closing of that other passage, was the
conscious, coordinate and voluntary action of the Things that formed
these mighty walls.
An action that obeyed, was directed by, the incredibly gigantic,
communistic will which, like the spirit of the hive, the soul of the
formicary, animated every unit of them.
A greater realization swept us. If THIS were true, then those pillars in
the vast hall, its towering walls--all this City was one living Thing!
Built of the animate bodies of countless millions! Tons upon countless
tons of them shaping a gigantic pile of which every atom was sentient,
mobile--intelligent!
A Metal Monster!
Now I knew why it was that its frowning facade had seemed to watch us
Argus-eyed as the Things had tossed us toward it. It HAD watched us!
That flood of watchfulness pulsing about us had been actual
concentration of regard of untold billions of tiny eyes of the living
block which formed the City's cliff.
A City that Saw! A City that was Alive!
No secret mechanism then--back darted my mind to that first terror--had
closed the wall, shutting from our sight Norhala at play with the Little
Things. None had opened the way for, had closed the way behind, the
coursing spheres. It had been done by the conscious action of the
conscious Things of whose living bodies was built this whole tremendous
thinking pile!
I think that for a moment we both went a little mad as that staggering
truth came to us. I know we started to run once more, side by side,
gripping like frightened children each other's hands. Then Drake
stopped.
“By all the HELL of this place,” he said, solemnly, “I'll run no more.
After all--we're men. If they kill us, they kill us. But by the God who
made me I'll run from them no more. I'll die standing.”
His courage steadied me. Defiantly we marched on. Up from below us, down
from the roof, out from the walls of our way the hosts of eyes gleamed
and twinkled upon us.
“Who could have believed it?” he muttered, half to himself. “A living
city of them! A living nest of them; a prodigious living nest of metal!”
“A nest?” I caught the word. What did it suggest? That was it--the nest
of the army ants, the city of the army ants, that Beebe had studied in
the South American jungles and once described to me. After all, was this
more wonderful, more unbelievable than that--the city of ants which was
formed by their living bodies precisely as this was of the bodies of the
Cubes?
How had Beebe * phrased it--“the home, the nest, the hearth, the nursery,
the bridal suite, the kitchen, the bed and board of the army ants.”
Built of and occupied by those blind and deaf and savage little insects
which by the guidance of smell alone carried on the most intricate
operations, the most complex activities. Nothing here was stranger than
that, I reflected--if once one could rid the mind of the paralyzing
influence of the shapes of the Metal Things. Whence came the stimuli
that moved THEM, the stimuli to which THEY reacted?
* William Beebe, Atlantic Monthly, October, 1919.
Well then--whence and how came the orders to which the ANTS responded;
that bade them open THIS corridor in their nest, close THAT, form this
chamber, fill that one? Was one more mysterious than the other?
Breaking into my current of thoughts came consciousness that I was
moving with increased speed; that my body was fast growing lighter.
Simultaneously with this recognition I felt myself lifted from the
floor of the corridor and levitated with considerable rapidity forward;
looking down I saw that floor several feet below me. Drake's arm wound
itself around my shoulder.
“Closing up behind us,” he muttered. “They're putting us--out.”
It was, indeed, as though the passageway had wearied of our deliberate
progress. Had decided to--give us a lift. Rearward it was shutting. I
noted with interest how accurately this motion kept pace with our own
speed, and how fluidly the walls seemed to run together.
Our movement became accelerated. It was as though we floated buoyantly,
weightless, upon some swift stream. The sensation was curiously
pleasant, languorous--what was that word Ruth had used?--ELEMENTAL--and
free. The supporting force seemed to flow equally from walls and
floor; to reach down to us from the roof. It was slumberously even, and
effortless. I saw that in advance of us the living corridor was opening
even as behind us it was closing.
All around us the little eye points twinkled and--laughed.
There was no danger here--there could be none. Deeper and deeper dropped
my mind into the depths of that alien tranquillity. Faster and faster we
floated--onward.
Abruptly, ahead of us shone a blaze of daylight. We passed into it. The
force holding us withdrew its grip; I felt solidity beneath my feet;
stood and leaned back against a smooth wall.
The corridor had ended and--had shut us out from itself.
“Bounced!” exclaimed Drake.
And incongruous, flippant, colloquial as was that word, I know none that
would better describe my own feelings.
We were BOUNCED out upon a turret jutting from the barrier. And before
us lay spread the most amazing, the most extraordinary fantastic scene
upon which, I think, the vision of man has rested since the advent of
time.