 The Cosmic Express by Jack Williamson This story was first published in Amazing Stories November 1930. Mr. Eric Stokes Harding, tumbled out of the rumpled bed-clothing, a striking slender figure in purple striped pajamas. He smiled fondly across to the other of the twin beds, where Nada, his pretty bride, lay quiet beneath light silk covers. With a groan he stood up and began a series of fantastic bending exercises. But after a few half-hearted movements he gave it up, and walked through an open door into a small bright room, its walls covered with bookcases, and also with scientific appliances that would have been strange to the man of four or five centuries before when the age of aviation was beginning. Yawning, Mr. Eric Stokes Harding stood before the great open windows staring out. Below him was a wide park-like space, green with emerald lawns and bright with flowering plants. Two hundred yards across it rose an immense pyramidal building, an artistic structure gleaming with white marble and bright metal, striped with a verduous of terraced roof gardens, its slender peak rising to help support the gray steel-ribbed glass roof above. Beyond, the park stretched away in illimitable vistas broken with the graceful columned buildings that held up the great glass roof. Above the glass, over this New York of 2432 AD, a freezing blizzard was sweeping. But small concern was that to the lightly clad man at the window, who was inhaling deeply the fragrant air from the plants below, air kept winter and summer exactly at 20 degrees centigrade. With another yawn, Mr. Eric Stokes Harding turned back to the room, which was bright with a rich golden light that poured in from the suspended globes of the cold, atto light that illuminated the snow-covered city. With a distasteful grimace he seated himself before a broad paper littered desk, sat a few minutes leaning back, with his hands clasped behind his head. At last he straightened reluctantly, slid a small typewriter out of its drawer, and began pecking at it impatiently. For Mr. Eric Stokes Harding was an author. There was a whole shelf of his books on the wall, in bright jackets, red and blue and green, that brought a thrill of pleasure to the young novelist's heart when he looked up from his collateral machine. He wrote thrilling action romances, as his enthusiastic publishers and television directors said, of ages past when men were men, red-blooded heroes responding vigorously to the stirring passions of primordial life. He was impartial as to the source of his thrills, provided they were distant enough from modern civilization. His hero was likely to be an ape-man roaring through the jungle, with a bloody rock in one hand and a beautiful girl on the other, or a cowboy, hard-writing, hard-shooting, the vanishing hero of the ancient ranches, or a man marooned with a lovely woman on a desert South Sea island. His heroes were invariably strong, fearless, resourceful fellows who could handle a club on equal terms with a caveman, or call science to aid them in defending a beautiful mate from the terrors of desolate wilderness. And a hundred million read Eric's novels and watched the dramatization of them on the television screens. They thrilled at the simple romantic lives his heroes led, paid him handsome royalties, and subconsciously shared his opinion that civilization had taken all the best from the life of man. Eric had settled down to the artistic satisfaction of describing the sensuous delights of his hero in the roasted marrow bones of a dead mammoth, when the pretty woman in the other room stirred, and presently came tripping into the study gay and vivacious and, as her husband of a few months most justly thought, altogether beautiful in a bright silk dressing gown. Recklessly he slammed the machine back into its place and resolved to forget that his next red-blooded action thriller was due in the publisher's office at the end of the month. He sprang up to kiss his wife, held her embraced for a long happy moment, and then they went hand in hand to the side of the room and punched a series of buttons on a panel. A simple way of ordering breakfast sent up the automatic shaft from the kitchens below. Nada Stokes Harding was also an author. She wrote poems, back to nature stuff, the simple lyrics of the sea, of sunsets, of bird songs, of bright flowers and warm winds, of thrilling communion with nature and growing things. Men read her poems and called her a genius. Even though the whole world had grown up into a city the birds were extinct, there were no wildflowers, and no one had time to bother about sunsets. Eric Darling, she said, isn't it terrible to be cooped up here in this little flat away from the things we both love? Yes, dear, civilization has ruined the world. If we could only have lived a thousand years ago when life was simple and natural, when men hunted and killed their meat instead of drinking synthetic stuff, when men still had the joys of conflict instead of living under glass like hot house flowers. If we could only go somewhere, there isn't anywhere to go. I write about the West, Africa, South Sea Islands, but they were all filled up 200 years ago. Pleasure resorts, sanatoriums, cities, factories. If only we lived on Venus. I was listening to a lecture on the television last night. The speaker said that the planet Venus is younger than the Earth, that it has not cooled so much, it has a thick cloudy atmosphere and low rainy forests. There's simple elemental life there like Earth had before civilization ruined it. Yes, Kensley, with his new infrared ray telescope that penetrates the cloud layers of the planet, proved that Venus rotates in about the same period as Earth, and it must be much like Earth a million years ago. Eric, I wonder if we could go there. It would be so thrilling to begin life like the characters in your stories, to get away from this hateful civilization and live natural lives. Maybe a rocket? The young author's eyes were glowing. He skipped across the floor, seized Nauta, kissed her ecstatically, splendid. Think of hunting in the virgin forest, of bringing the game home to you, but I'm afraid there is no way. Wait, the cosmic express. The cosmic express? A new invention, just perfected a few weeks ago, I understand, by Ludwig van der Waals, the German physicist. I quit bothering about science. It has ruined nature, filled the world with silly artificial people doing silly artificial things. But this is quite remarkable, dear. A new way to travel. By ether. By ether? Yes, you know, of course, that energy and matter are interchangeable terms. Both are simply etheric vibration of different sorts. Of course, that's elementary, she smiled proudly. I can give you examples, even of the change. The disintegration of the radium atom, making helium and lead and energy, and Millican's old proof that his cosmic ray is generated when particles of electricity are united to form an atom. Fine, I thought you said you weren't a scientist. He glowed with pride. But the method in the new cosmic express is simply to convert the matter to be carried into power, send it out as a radiant beam and focus to beam to convert it back into atoms at the destination. But the amount of energy must be terrific. It is. You know, short waves carry more energy than long ones. The express ray is an electromagnetic vibration of frequency far higher than that of even the cosmic ray, and correspondingly more powerful and more penetrating. The girl frowned, running slim fingers through golden brown hair. But I don't see how they get any recognizable object, not even how they get the radiation turned back into matter. The beam is focused, just like the light that passes through a camera lens. The photographic lens using light rays picks up a picture and reproduces it again on the plate. Just the same as the express ray picks up an object and sets it down on the other side of the world. An analogy from television might help. You know that by means of the scanning disk, the picture is transformed into mere rapid fluctuations in the brightness of a beam of light. In a parallel manner, the focal plane of the express ray moves slowly through the object, progressively dissolving layers of the thickness of a single atom, which are accurately reproduced at the other focus of the instrument, which might be in Venus. But the analogy of the lens is the better of the two. For no receiving instrument is required as in television. The object is built up of an infinite series of plane layers at the focus of the ray, no matter where that might be. Such a thing would be impossible with radio apparatus because even with the best beam transmission, all but a tiny fraction of the power is lost, and power is required to rebuild the atoms. Do you understand here? Not altogether. But I should worry. Here comes breakfast. Let me butter your toast. A bell had rung at the shaft. She ran to it and returned with a great silver tray, laden with dainty dishes which she set on a little side table. They sat down opposite each other and ate, getting as much satisfaction from contemplation of each other's faces as from the excellent food. When they had finished, she carried the tray to the shaft, slid it in a slot and touched a button, thus disposing of the culinary cares of the morning. She ran back to Eric, who was once more staring distastefully at his typewriter. Oh, darling, I'm thrilled to death about the cosmic express. If we could go to Venus to a new life on a new world and get away from all this hateful conventional society, we can go to their office. It's only five minutes. The chap that operates the machine for the company is a pal of mine. He's not supposed to take passengers except between the offices they have scattered around the world. But I know his weak point. Eric laughed, fumbled with a hidden spring under his desk. A small polished object gleaming silvery slid down into his hand. Old friendship plus this would make him like spinach. Five minutes later Mr. Eric stokes hearting and his pretty wife were in street clothes, light silk tunics of loose flowing lines, little clothing being required in the artificially warmed city. They entered an elevator and dropped 30 stories to the ground floor of the Great Building. There they entered a cylindrical car with rows of seats down the sides. Not greatly different from an ancient subway car, except that it was airtight, and was hurled by magnetic traction and repulsion through a tube exhausted of air, at a speed that would have made an old subway rider gasp with amazement. In five more minutes their car had whipped up to the base of another building in the business section, where there was no room for parks between the mighty structures that held the unbroken glass roofs 200 stories above the concrete pavement. An elevator brought them up 150 stories. Eric led Nada down a long carpeted corridor to a wide glass door, which bore the words Cosmic Express, stenciled in gold capitals across it. As they approached, a lean man carrying a black bag, darted out of an elevator shaft opposite the door, ran across the corridor and entered. They pushed in after him. They were in a little room cut in two by a high brass grill. In front of it was a long bench along the wall that reminded one of the waiting room in an old railroad depot. In the grill was a little window with a lazy brown-eyed youth leaning on the shelf behind it. Beyond him was a great glittering piece of mechanism half hidden by the brass. A little door gave access to the machine from the space before the grill. The thin man in black, whom Eric now recognized as a prominent French heart specialist, was dancing before the window, waving his bag frantically, raving at the sleepy boy. Quick! I have to tell you the truth. I have the most urgent necessity to go quickly. A patient I have in Paris that is in the most critical condition. Hold your horses. Just a minute, mister. We got a client in the machine now. Russian diplomat from Moscow to Rio de Janeiro. $270.80 please. Year turn next. Remember, this is just an experimental service, regular installations all over the world in a year. Ready now? Come on in. The youth took the money, pressed a button. The door sprang open in the grill and the frantic position leaped through it. Lie down on the crystal, face up, the young man ordered. Hands at your sides. Don't breathe. Ready? He manipulated his dials and switches and pressed another button. Why, hello, Eric. Oh, man, he cried. That's the lady you were telling me about. Congratulations. A bell jangled before him on the panel. Just a minute, I've got a call. He punched the board again. Little bulbs lit and glowed for a second. The youth turned toward the half hidden machine, spoke courteously. All right, madam, walk out. Hope you've found the transient pleasant. But my violet, my precious violet, a shrill female voice came from the machine. Sir, what have you done with my darling violet? I'm sure I don't know, madam. You lost it off your hat. None of your impertinence, sir. I want my dog. Ah, the dog must have jumped off the crystal. You can have him sent on for three hundred and young men. If any harm comes to my violet, I'll I'll I'll appeal to the society for the prevention of cruelty to animals. Very good, madam. We appreciate your patronage. The door flew open again. A very fat woman puffing angrily, face highly colored, clothing shimmering with artificial gems, waddled pompously out of the door through which the frantic French doctor had so recently vanished. She rolled heavily across the room and out into the corridor. Shrill words floated back. I'm going to see my lawyer, my precious violet, the sallow youth winked. And now what can I do for you, Eric? We want to go to Venus if that ray of yours can put us there. To Venus? Impossible. My orders are to use the express merely between the 16 designated stations at New York, San Francisco, Tokyo, London, Paris. See here, Charlie. With a cautious glance toward the door, Eric held up the silver flask. For old times' sake, and for this, the boy seemed dazed at sight of the bright flask. Then with a single swift motion, he snatched it out of Eric's hand and bent to conceal it below his instrument panel. Sure, old boy, I'll send you to heaven for that if you'd give me the micrometer readings to set the ray with. But I tell you, this is dangerous. I've got a sort of television attachment for focusing the ray. I can turn that on Venus. I've been amusing myself watching the life there already. Terrible place. Savage. I can pick a place on Highland to set you down, but I can't be responsible for what happens afterward. Simple primitive life is what we're looking for. And now what do I owe you? Oh, that's all right. Between friends. Provided that stuff's genuine. Walk in and lie down on the crystal block. Hands at your sides. Don't move. The little door has swung open again, and Eric led nada through. They stepped into a little cell, completely surrounded with mirrors and vast prisms and lenses at electron tubes. In the center was a slab of transparent crystal eight feet square and two inches thick, with an intricate mass of machinery below it. Eric helped nada to a place on the crystal lay down at her side. I think the expressway is focused just at the surface of the crystal from below, he said. It dissolves our substance to be transmitted by the beam. It would look as if we were melting into the crystal. Ready, call the youth. I think I've got it for you. Sort of a high island in the jungle. Nothing bad in sight now. But I say, how are you coming back? I haven't got time to watch you. Go ahead, we aren't coming back. Gee, what is it, bloatman? I thought you were married already or is it business difficulties? The bears did make an awful raid last night. But you better let me set you down in Hong Kong. A bell jangled. So long, the youth called. Nada and Eric felt themselves enveloped in fire. Sheets of white flames seemed to lap up about them from the crystal block. Suddenly there was a sharp tingling sensation where they touched the polished surface. Then blackness, blankness. The next thing they knew the fires were gone from about them. They were lying in something extremely soft and fluid, and warm rain was beating in their faces. Eric set up, found himself in a mud puddle. Beside him was Nada opening her eyes and struggling up her bright garments stained with black mud. All about rows of thick jungle dark and gloomy and very wet. Palm like the gigantic trees were flinging clouds of feathery green foliage high against a somber sky of unbroken gloom. They stood up triumphant. At last Nada cried, we're free, free of that hateful old civilization. We're back to nature. Yes, we're on our feet now, not parasites on the machines. It's wonderful to have a fine strong man like you to trust in Eric. You're just like one of the heroes in your books. You're the perfect companion, Nada. But now we must be practical. We must build a fire, find weapons, set up a shelter of some kind. I guess it will be night pretty soon and Charlie said something about savage animals he has seen in the television. We'll find a nice dry cave and have a fire in front of the door and skins of animals to sleep on and pottery vessels to cook in and you will find seeds and grow grain. But first we must find a flint bed. We need flints for tools and to strike sparks to make a fire with. We will probably come across a chunk of virgin copper to its found native. Presently they set off through the jungle. The mud seemed to be very abundant and of a most sticky consistency. They sank into it ankle deep at every step, and vast masses of it clung to their feet. A mile they struggled on without finding where a provident nature had left them a single fragment of quartz to say nothing of a mass of pure copper. Adorned shame, Eric grumbled, come forty million miles and meet such a reception as this. Not a stopped. Eric, she said, I'm tired. And I don't believe there's any rock here anyway. You'll have to use wooden tools sharpened in the fire. Perhaps you're right. This soil seems to be of alluvian origin. Wouldn't be surprised if the native rock is some hundreds of feet underground. Your idea is better. You can make a fire by rubbing sticks together, can't you? It can be done, I'm sure. I've never tried it myself. We need some dry sticks first. They resumed the weary march with a good fraction of the new planet adhering to their feet. Rain was still falling from the dark heavens and a steady warm downpour. Dry wood seemed scarce as the proverbial hen's teeth. You didn't bring any matches, dear? Matches? Of course not. We're going back to nature. I hope we get a fire pretty soon. If dry wood were gold dust, we couldn't buy a hot dog. Eric, that reminds me that I'm hungry. He confessed to a few pangs of his own. They turned their attention to looking for banana trees and coconut palms. But they did not seem to abound in the venerian jungle. Even small animals that might have been slain with a broken branch had contrary ideas about the matter. At last, from sheer weariness, they stopped and gathered branches to make a sloping shelter by a vast fallen tree trunk. This will keep us out of the rain, maybe, Eric said, hopefully, and tomorrow when it has quit raining I'm sure we'll do better. They crept in as gloomy night fell without. They lay in each other's arms, the body warmth oddly comforting. Not a cry to little. Walk up, Eric advised her. We're back to nature, where we've always wanted to be. With the darkness the temperature fell somewhat and a high wind rose whipping cold rain into the little shelter and threatening to demolish it. Swarms of mosquito-like insects seemingly not inconvenienced in the least by the inclement elements, swarmed about them in clouds. Then came a sound from the dismal, stormy night. A horse bellowing roar, raucous, terrifying. Not a clung to Eric. What is it, dear? She chattered. Must be a reptile, dinosaur, or something of that sort. This world seems to be about in the same state as the earth when they flourished there, but maybe it won't find us. The roar was repeated, nearer. The earth trembled beneath a mighty tread. Eric, a thin voice trembled. Don't you think it might have been better? You know, the old life was not so bad after all. I was just thinking of our rooms, nice and warm and bright, with hot foods coming up the shaft whenever we pushed the button, and the gay crowds in the park and my old typewriter. Eric, she called softly. Yes, dear. Don't you wish we had known better? I do. If he went steadly, we, the girl, did not notice. The roaring outside was closer, and suddenly it was answered by another raucous bellow at considerable distance that echoed strangely through the forest. The fearful sounds were repeated alternately, and always the more distance seemed nearer until the two sounds were together. And then an infernal din broke out in the darkness. Bellows, screams, deafening shrieks, mighty splashes as if struggling titans at upset oceans. Thunderous crashes as if they were demolishing forests. Eric and Nata clung to each other in doubt whether to stay or to fly through the storm. Gradually the sound of the conflict came nearer until the earth shook beneath them, and they were afraid to move. Suddenly the great fallen tree against which they had erected the flimsy shelter was rolled back evidently by a chance blow from the invisible monsters. The pitiful roof collapsed on the bedraggled humans. Nata burst into tears. Oh, if only, if only! Suddenly flame lapped up about them, the same white flame they had seen as they lay on the crystal block. Dissiness, insensibility overcame them. A few minutes later they were lying on the transparent table in the cosmic express office with all those great mirrors and prisms and lenses about them. A bustling red-faced official appeared through the door in the grill, fairly bubbling apologies. So, oh, sorry, an accident inconceivable. I can't see how we got it. We got you back as soon as we could find a focus. I sincerely hope you haven't been injured. Why, what, what, why I happened in, found our operator drunk. I've no idea where he got the stuff. He murdered something about Venus. I consulted the auto register and found two more passengers registered here that had been reported at our other stations. I looked up the duplicate beam coordinates and found that it had been set on Venus. I got men on the television at once and we happened to find you. I can't imagine how it happened. I had the fellow locked up in the dry lures or on the job. I hope you won't hold us for excessive damages. No, I ask nothing except that you don't press charges against the boy. I don't want him to suffer for it in any way. My life and I will be perfectly satisfied to get back to our apartment. I don't wonder, you look as though you've been through, I don't know what. But I'll have you there in five minutes, my private car. Mr. Eric Stokes Harding, noted author of Primitive Life and Love, a hearty meal with his pretty spouse after they had washed off the grime of another planet. He spent the next 12 hours in bed. At the end of the month he delivered his promised story to his publishers, a thrilling tale of a man marooned on Venus with a beautiful girl. The hero made stone tools, erected a dwelling for himself when his mate hunted food for her, defended her from the mammoth, sorry in monsters of the Venerian jungles. The book was a huge success. End of The Cosmic Express by Jack Williamson. The Pygmy Planet by Jack Williamson. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. This story was first published in Astounding Stories February 1932. Nothing ever happens to me, Larry Manahan grumbled under his breath, sitting behind his desk at the advertising agency, which employed his services in return for the consideration of fifty a week. All the adventure I know is what I see in the movies or read about in magazines. What wouldn't I give for a slice of real life? Unconsciously he tense the muscles of his six feet of lean hard body. His crisp flame colored hair seemed to bristle. His blue eyes blazed. He clenched a brown hammer of a fist. Larry felt himself an energetic red-blooded square peg, badly afflicted with the urge for adventure, miserably wedged in a round hole. It is one of the misfortunes of our civilization that a young man who, for example, might have been an excellent pirate a couple of centuries ago, must be kept chained to a desk. And that seemed to be Larry's fate. Things happen to other people, he muttered. Why couldn't an adventure come to me? He sat staring wistfully at a picture of a majestic mountain landscape soon to be used in the advertising of a railway company whose publicity was handled by his agency when the jangle of the telephone roused him with a start. Oh, Larry! came a breathless, squivering voice. Then with a click the connection was broken. The voice had been feminine and had carried a familiar ring. Larry tried to place it as he listened at the receiver and attempted to get the broken connection restored. Your party hung up and won't answer, the operator informed him. He replaced the receiver on the hook, still seeking to follow the thin thread of memory given him by the familiar note in that eager, excited voice. If only the girl had spoken a few more words. Then it came to him. Agnes Stirling, he exclaimed aloud. Agnes Stirling was a slender, elfish, dark-haired girl. Lovely he had thought her on the occasions of their few brief meetings. Larry knew her as the secretary and laboratory assistant of Dr. Travis Whiting, a retired college professor known for his work on the structure of the atom. Larry had called at the home laboratory of the savant months before to check certain statistics to be used for advertising purposes and had met the girl there. Only a few times since had he seen her. Now she had called him in a voice that fairly trembled with excitement and he thought dread. And she had been interrupted before she had time to give him any message. For a few seconds Larry stared at the telephone. Then he rose abruptly to his feet, rammed his hat on his head and started for the door. The way to find an adventurer is to go after it, he muttered, and this is the invitation. It was not many minutes later that he sprang out of a taxi at the front of the building in which Dr. Travis Whiting made his home and maintained a private experimental laboratory. It was a two-story stucco house, rather out of date, set well back from the sidewalk with a scrap of lawn and a few straggling shrubs before it. The door was closed, the windows curtained blankly, the place seemed deserted and forbidding. Larry ran up the uneven brick walk to the door and rang the bell. Impatiently he waited for a few moments. No sound came from within. He felt something ominous, fateful about the silent mystery that seemed to shroud the old house. For the first time it occurred to him that Agnes might be in physical danger as a result of some incautious experiment on the part of Dr. Whiting. Instinctively his hands sought the doorknob. To his surprise the door was unlocked. It swung open before him. For a moment he stared, hesitating, into the dark hall revealed beyond. Then, driven by the thought that Agnes might be in danger, he advanced impulsively. The several doors opening into the hall were closed. The one at the back he knew gave admittance to the laboratory. Impel by some vague premonition he hastened toward it down the long hall and threw it open. As he stepped into the room his foot slipped on a spot of something red. Recovering his balance with difficulty he peered about. Bending down, Larry briefly examined the red spot on which he had slipped. It was a pool of fresh blood which had not yet darkened. Lying beside it crimson splashed was a revolver. As he picked up the weapon he cried out in astonishment. Something had happened to the gun. The trigger guard was torn from it and the cylinder crushed as if in some resistless grasp. The stock was twisted and the barrel bent almost into a circle. The revolver had been crumpled by some terrific force as a soft clay model of it might have been broken by the pressure of a man's hand. Grimson shades a Caesar he muttered and dropped the crushed weapon to the floor again. His eyes swept the silent laboratory. It was a huge room, taking up all the rear part of the house from the first floor to the roof. Gray daylight streamed through a skylight twenty feet overhead. The ends of the vast room were cluttered with electrical and chemical apparatus, but Larry's eye was caught at once by a strange and complex device which loomed across from him in the center of the floor. Two pillars of intense light, a ray of crimson flame and another of deeply violent radiance beat straight down from a complicated array of enormous oddly shaped electron tubes of mirrors and lenses and prisms of coils and whirling discs which reached almost to the roof. Upright, a yard in diameter and almost a yard apart, the strange columns of light were sharp edged as two transparent cylinders filled with liquid light of ruby end of amethyst. Each ray poured down upon a circular platform of glass or polished crystal. Hanging between those motionless cylinders of red and violet light was a strange-looking greenest globe. A round ball, nearly a yard in diameter, hung between the rays almost touching them. Its surface was oddly splotched with darker and lighter areas. It was spinning steadily at a low rate of speed. Larry did not see what held it up. It seemed hanging free several feet above the crystal platforms. Reluctantly he withdrew his eyes from the mysterious sphere and looked about the room once more. No, the laboratory was vacant of human occupants. No one was hidden among the benches that were cluttered with beakers and test tubes and stills or among the dynamos and transformers in the other end of the room. A confusion of questions beat through Larry's brain. What danger could be haunting this quiet laboratory? Was this the blood of Agnes Sterling or the scientist who employed her that was now clotting on the floor? What terrific force had crumpled up the revolver. What had become of Agnes and Dr. Whiting, and of whatever had attacked him, had Agnes called him after the attack or before? Despite himself, his attention was drawn back to the little globe spinning so regularly, floating in the air between the pillars of red and violet flame. Floating alone, like a little world in space without visible support, it might be held up by magnetic attraction, he thought. A tiny planet. His mind quickened at the idea and he had forgot the weird mystery gathering about him. He stepped nearer the sphere. It was curiously like a miniature world. The irregular bluish areas would be seas, the green and brown spaces land. In some parts the surface appeared mistily obscured, perhaps by masses of cloud. Larry saw an odd-looking lamp set perhaps ten feet behind the slowly spinning floating ball, throwing upon it a bright ray of vividly blue light. Half the strange fear was brilliantly illuminated by it. The rest was in comparative darkness. That blue lamp, it came to Larry, lit the sphere as the sun lights the earth. Nonsense, he muttered. It's impossible. Aroused by the seeming wonder of it, he was drawn nearer the ball. It spun rather slowly, Larry noted, and each rotation consumed several seconds. He could distinguish green patches that might be forests, and thin silvery lines that looked like rivers, and broad red-brown areas that must be deserts, and the broad blue stretches that suggested oceans. A toy world, he cried. A laboratory planet. What an experiment! Then his eyes looking up caught the glistening, polished lenses of a powerful magnifying glass which hung by a black ribbon from a hook on one of the heavy steel beams which supported the huge mass of silently whirring apparatus. Eagerly he unfastened the magnifier. Holding it before his eyes, he bent toward the strange sphere spinning steadily in the air. Suffering shades of Caesar, he ejaculated. Beneath the lens a world was racing. He could see masses of vividly green forest, vast expanses of bare, cracked, ochrous desert, wastes of smooth blue ocean. Then he was gazing at a city? Larry could not be sure that he had seen correctly. It had slipped very swiftly beneath his lens. But he had a momentary impression of tiny, fantastic buildings clustered in an elf-like city. A pygmy planet spinning in the laboratory like a world in the Gulf of Space. What could it mean? Could it be connected with a strange call from Agnes? With the blood on the floor? With the strange and ominous silence that shrouded the deserted room? Oh, Larry! A clear, familiar voice rang suddenly from the door. You came! Startled, Larry leaped back from the tiny, whirling globe and turned to the door. A girl had come silently into the room. It was Agnes Sterling. Her dark hair was tangled, her small face was flushed, and her brown eyes were wide with fear. In a white hand which shook a little, she carried a small, gold-plated automatic pistol. She ran nervously across the wide floor to Larry with relief dawning in her eyes. I'm so glad you came! She gasped, panting with excitement. I started to call you on the phone, but then I was afraid it would kill you if you came. Please be careful. It may come back any minute. You'd better go away. It just took Dr. Whiting. Wait a minute, Larry put in. Just one thing at a time. Let's get this straight. To begin with, what is it that might kill me? And that got the doctor. It's terrible! She gasped, trembling. A monster! You must go away before it comes back. Larry drew a tall stool from beside one of the crowded tables and placed it beside her. Don't get excited, he urged. I'm sure everything will be all right. Just sit down and tell me about it. The whole story. Just what is going on here, and what happened to Dr. Whiting? He helped her upon the stool. She looked up at him, gratefully, and began to speak in a rapid voice. You see that little planet? The monster came from that and carried the doctor back there. And I know it will soon be back for another victim for sacrifice. She had pointed across the room toward the strange little globe which hung between the pillars of red and violet light. Please go slow, Larry Broken. You're too fast for me. Are you trying to tell me that that spinning ball is really a planet? Agnes seemed a little more composed, though she was still flushed and breathing rapidly. Her small hand still gripped the bright automatic. Yes, it is a planet, the pygmy planet, Dr. Whiting called it. He said it was the great experiment of the century. You see, he was testing evolution. We began with the planet, young and hot, and watched it till it is now almost as old as Mars. We watched the change and development of life upon it, and the rise and decay of a strange civilization. Until now its people are strange things, with human brains and mechanical bodies worshipping a rusty machine like a god. Go slow, Larry pleaded again. I don't see. Did the doctor build, create that planet himself? Yes. It began with his work on atomic structure. He discovered that certain frequencies of the X-ray, so powerful that they are almost akin to the cosmic ray, have the power of altering electronic orbits. Every atom, you know, is a sort of solar system, with electrons revolving about a proton. And these rays would cause the electrons to fall into incredibly smaller orbits, causing vast reduction in the size of the atoms, and in the size of any object which the atoms formed. They would cause anything living or dead to shrink to inconceivably microscopic dimensions, or restore it to its former size, depending upon the exact wavelength used. And time passes far more swiftly for the tiny objects, probably because the electrons move faster in their smaller orbits. That is what suggested to Dr. Whiting that he would be able to watch the entire life of a planet in the laboratory. And so at first we experimented merely with solitary specimens or colonies of animals. But on the pygmy planet we have watched the life of a world, the whole panorama of evolution. It seems too wonderful, Larry muttered. Could Dr. Whiting actually decrease his size and become a dwarf? No trick at all, Agnes assured him. All you'll have to do is stand in the violet beam to shrink and move over to the red one when you want to grow. I have been several times with Dr. Whiting to the pygmy planet. Been, Larry stopped, breathless with astonishment. See the little airplane, Agnes said, pointing under the table. Larry gasped. Beneath the table stood a toy airplane. The spread of its glistening, perfect wings was hardly three feet. A wonderful, delicate toy, accurate in every detail of propeller, motor, and landing gear of brace and rudder and aileron. Then he realized that it was no toy at all. But a faithful miniature of a commercial plane. A complete tiny copy of one of the latest single motor cabin monoplane models. It looks like it would fly, he said. A friend of mine has a big one just like it taught me to fly in it last summer vacation. This is the very image of it. It will fly, Agnes assured him, now composed enough to smile at his amazement. I have been with the doctor to the pygmy planet in it. You stand in the violet ray until you're about three inches high, she explained, and then get into the plane. Then you fly up and into the violet ray at the point where it touches the planet and remain there while you grow smaller. When you are the right size, all you have to do is drop to the surface and land. To come away you rise into the red ray and stay in it till you are grown to proper size when you come down and land. You've actually done that, he gasped. It sounds like a fairy story. Yes, I've done it, she assured him. Then she shuddered apprehensively. Oh, and the things, the machine monsters Dr. Wighting called him, have learned to do it too. One of them came down the red ray and attacked him. The doctor had a gun, but what could he do against one of those? She shivered. It carried him back up the violet beam just a few minutes ago. I sought at the phone you. Then I was afraid you would be hurt. Me? Hurt? Larry burst out. What about you here alone? It was my business. Dr. Wighting told me there might be danger when he hired me. And now what can we do? Larry demanded. I don't know, she said slowly. I'm afraid one of the monsters will be back after a new victim. We could smash the apparatus, but it is too wonderful to be destroyed. And besides, Dr. Wighting may have escaped. He may be alive there in the deserts. We might fly up in the little plane, Larry proposed doubtfully. I think I could pilot it if you want the girl's body stiffened. Her brown eyes widened with sudden dread, and her small face went pale. She slipped quickly from the stool, drawing in her breath with a sort of gasp. The hand that gripped the automatic trembled a little. What's the matter? Larry cried. I thought, she gasped. I think I see something in the ray. The machine monster is coming back. Her lips tightened. She lifted the little automatic and began to shoot into the pillar of crimson fire beside the tiny spinning globe. Larry watched tensely, saw a curious bird-like something fluttering about in the red ray, swiftly growing larger. Deliberately and pausing to aim carefully for each shot, the girl empty the little gun at the figure. Her body was rigid. Her small face was firmly set, though she was breathing very fast. A curious numbness had come over Larry. His only physical sensations were the quick hammering of his heart and a porching dryness in his throat. Terror stiffened him. Though he would not have admitted it, he was paralyzed with fear. The glittering thing that fluttered about in the crimson array was not an easy target. When the gun was empty, it seemed still unharmed, and its wings had increased to a span of a foot. Too late, Agnes gasped. Why didn't we do something? Trumbling, horror-stricken, she shrank toward Larry. He was staring at the thing in the pillar of scarlet light. It had dropped to the crystal disk upon which the red ray fell from the huge glowing tube above. It stood there motionless, except for the swift increase of its size. Larry gazed at it, lost in fear and wonder. It was like nothing he had ever seen. What was it that Agnes had said of machine monsters, of human brains, and mechanical bodies? His brain reeled. He strained his eyes to distinguish the monstrosity more clearly. It was veiled in crimson flame, he could not see it distinctly. But suddenly, when it was as tall as himself, it sprang out into the room toward Larry and the shattering girl. Just off the crystal disk, beyond the scarlet pillar of fire, it paused for long seconds, seeming to regard them with malevolent eyes. For the first time Larry could see it plainly. Its body, or its central part, was a tube of transparent crystal. An upright cylinder rounded at upper and lower ends. It was nearly a foot in diameter and four feet long. It seemed filled with a luminous purple liquid. About the cylinder were three bands of greenish glistening metal. Attached to the lower band were four jointed legs of the same bright green metal upon which the strange thing stood. Set in the middle band were two glittering, polished lenses, which seemed to serve as eyes, and Larry felt that they were gazing at him with malevolent menace. Behind the eyes two wings sprang from the green band. In genius folding wings of thin plates and bars of green metal. And from the upper band sprung four slender glistening whip-like tentacles, metallic and brilliantly green, two yards in length. They ride with strange life. It seemed a long time to Larry that the thing stood motionless, seeming to stare evilly at them with eye-like lenses. Then lurching forward a little, it moved toward them upon legs of green metal. And now Larry saw another amazing thing about it. Floating in the brilliant violet liquid that filled the crystal tube was a gray mass wrinkled and corrugated. This was divided by deep clefts into right and left hemispheres, which in turn were separated into larger upper and smaller lower segments. White filaments ran through the violet liquid from its base toward the three rings or bands of green metal that encircled the cylinder. In an instant Larry realized that the gray mass was a human brain. The larger upper part, the cerebrum, the smaller mass at the back, the cerebellum, and the white filaments were nerves by means of which this brain controlled its astounding mechanical body. A brain in a machine, the violet liquid it came to Larry in his trance of wonder, must take the place of blood feeding the brain cells absorbing waste. An eternal mind within a machine, free from the ills and weaknesses of the body, and avoid too of any pity of any tender feelings. A cold and selfish mind without emotion, unless it might worship itself or its mechanical body. It was this monster that had spilt the pool of blood drying on the floor near the door, and it was these glistening green snake-like tentacles that had crumpled the revolver into a broken mass of steel. Abruptly the machine monster darted forward, running swiftly upon its four legs of green metal. Slender tentacles reached out toward the shuddering girl at Larry's shoulder. Run! Agnes gasped to him quickly. It will kill you! The girl tried to push him back. As she touched him, Larry recovered from his days of wondering fear. Agnes was in frightful danger, and facing it with quiet courage. He must find a weapon. Wildly he looked about him. His eyes fell upon the tall, heavy wooden stool upon which Agnes had been sitting. Get back! he shouted to her. He snatched up the stool and, swinging it over his head, sprang toward the machine of violet-filled crystal and glittering green metal. Stop! Agnes screamed in a terrified voice. You can't! She had run before him. He seized her arm and swung her back behind him. Then he advanced warily toward the machine monster, which had paused and seemed to be regarding him with sinister intentness through its glistening crystal-eye lenses. With all his strength, Larry struck at the crystal cylinder, swinging the stool like an X. A slender, metallic green tentacle whipped out, tore the stool from his hands and sent it crashing across the room to splinter into fragments on the opposite wall. Larry, sent off his balance, staggered toward the glittering machine. As he stumbled against the transparent tube that contained its brain, he clenched his fist to strike futilely at it. A snake-like metal tentacle wrapped itself about him. He was hurled to the floor to sprawl grotesquely among broken apparatus. His head came against the leg of a bench. For a few moments he was dazed, but it seemed only a few seconds to him before he had staggered to his feet, rubbing his bruised head. Anxiously he peered about the room. The machine monster and Agnes were gone. He stumbled back to the mass of apparatus in the center of the huge laboratory. Intently he gazed into the upright pillar of crimson flame. Nothing was visible there. No, the other, he gasped. The violent is the way they went. He turned to the companion ray of violent radiance that beat straight down on the opposite side of the tiny whirling planet. And in that motionless torrent of chill violent flame he saw them, tiny already and swiftly dwindling. With green wings outspread, the machine monster was beating swiftly upwards through the pillar of purple-blue flame. And, close against the crystal tube that contained his brain, was Agnes, held fast by the whip-like tentacles of glistening green metal. Larry moved to spring after them into the torrent of violent light, but sudden caution restrained him. I'd shrink too, he muttered, and then where would I be? I'd be standing on the glass platform, I guess, and the thing flying off over my head. He gazed at the rapid lead-windling forms of Agnes sterling in her amazing abductor. As it grew smaller, the machine monster flew higher in the violent beam until it was opposite the tiny spinning planet. The distance between the red and violent rays was just slightly more than the diameter of the pygmy world. The sphere hung between them, one side of it a fraction of an inch from the red, the other as near the violent. Opposite the elfin planet, the monster ceased to climb. It hung there in the violent ray an inch from the surface of the little world, and still is swiftly dwindled. It was no larger than a fly, and Larry could barely distinguish the form of the girl helpless in the green tentacles. Soon, she and the monster became a mere greenish speck. Suddenly, they were gone. For a little time he stood watching the point where they had vanished, watching the red and violent rays that poured straight down upon the crystal discs, watching the tiny green blue planet spinning so steadily between the bright rays. Abruptly he recovered from his fascination of wonder. What did she say, he muttered, something about the monsters carrying off people to sacrifice to a rusty machine that they worshipped as a god? It took her for that? He clenched his fists. His lips became a straight line of determination. Then I guess we try a voyage in the little plane, a slim chance maybe, but decidedly better than none. He returned to the table, dropped on his knees, inspected the tiny airplane. A perfect miniature, delicately beautiful, its slim, small wings were bright as silver foil. Carefully he opened the door and peered into the diminutive cabin. Two minute rifles, several Lilapuchin pistols, and boxes of ammunition to match, lay on the rear seat of the plane. So we are prepared for war, he remarked, grinning in satisfaction. And the next trick, I suppose, is to get shrunk to fit the plane. About three inches, she said. Lord, it's a queer thing to think about. He got to his feet, walked back to the machine in the center of the room, with its twin pillars of red and violet flame, and a tiny world floating between them. He started to step into the violet ray, then hesitated, shivering involuntarily, like a swimmer about to dive into icy cold water. Turning back to one of the benches, he picked up a wooden funnel rack and tossed it to the crystal disk beneath the violet ray. Slowly it decreased in size until it had vanished from sight. Safe, I suppose, he muttered. But how do I know when I'm small enough? After a moment he picked up a glass bottle which measured about three inches in height, set in on the floor beside the crystal disk. I dive out when I get to be the size of the bottle, he murmured. With that he leaped into the violet beam. He felt no unusual sensation except one of pleasant tingling warmth, as if the direct rays of the sun were beaming down upon him. For a moment he feared that his size was not being affected. Then he noticed not that he appeared to be becoming smaller, but that the laboratory seemed to be growing immensely larger. The walls seemed to race away from him. The green-blue sphere of the tiny planet where he proposed to visit expanded and drew away above his head. Abruptly fearful, alarmed at the hugeness of the room, he turned to look at the bottle he had placed to serve as a standard of size. It had grown with everything else until it seemed to be about three feet high, and it was swiftly expanding. It reached to the level of his shoulder and higher. He ran to the edge of the crystal disk which now seemed a floor many yards across and leaped from its edge. It was a dozen steps to where he had left the bottle, and it was as tall as himself. He started across the floor of the laboratory toward the table under which the toy plane stood. The incredible immensity of his surroundings awed him strangely. The walls of the room seemed distant. Cyclopian cliffs, the roof was like a sky. Table legs towered up like enormous columns. It seemed a hundred yards across the strangely rough floor to the plane. As he drew near it, it gave him huge satisfaction to see that it was of normal size, correctly proportioned to his own dimensions. Good luck, he muttered, that I can fly. He paused as he reached the cabin's open door to wonder at the astounding fact that, a little while ago, he had opened that door with a hand larger than his entire body now was. I guess this is my day of wonders, he muttered. All a nose I had to wait long enough for it. First he examined the weapons in the cabin. There were two heavy sporting rifles and two 45 automatics. There were also two smaller automatics which he supposed had been intended for Agnes's use, and there was abundant ammunition. Then he inspected the plane. It looked to be an excellent condition in every way. The gasoline and oil tanks were full. He set about starting the motor using the plane's inertia starter, which was driven by an electric motor. Soon the engine coughed, sputtered, and gave rise to a roaring rhythmic note that Larry found musical. When the motor was warm, he opened the throttle and taxi out from beneath the colossal table and across the laboratory floor toward the Titanic mechanism at the center of the room. The disc of crystal was set almost flush with the blur, its edge beveled. The plane rolled easily upon it and out into the cyclopean pillar of violent flame. Once more, Larry felt the sensation that everything about him except the plane itself was expanding inconceivably in size. Soon the laboratory's walls and roof were lost in hazy blue distance. He could distinguish only the broad, bright field formed by the surface of the crystal disc, with the floor stretching away beyond it like a vast plane, and above the green-blue sphere of the tiny planet, bright on one side and dark on the other so that it looked like a half moon, immensely far off. As he waited, he noticed a curious little dial in a lower corner of the instrument board, which he had not seen at first. One end of its graduated scale was marked Earth Normal, the other Pygmy Planet Normal. A tiny black needle was creeping slowly across the scale toward Pygmy Planet Normal. That's how we tell what size we are without having to look at a buttle, he muttered. When the area of the crystal platform appeared to be about half a square mile, he decided that he would now have sufficient space to spiral up the violent ray toward the planet. If he waited too long to start, the distance would become impossibly great. He gave the little plane the gun. The motor thundered a throbbing song. The ship rolled smoothly forward over the polished surface, gained flying speed, and took the air without a shock. Feels good to hold a stick again, Larry murmured. Making small circles to keep within the upright pillar of violent radiance, he climbed steadily and as rapidly as possible, keeping his eyes upon the brilliant half moon of the Pygmy Planet. The strangest flight in the annals of aviation. He was flying toward a goal that a few minutes before he could have touched. Toward the goal that at the beginning of his flight was only a few lints of his plane away, and his size dwindled so rapidly as he flew that the planet seemed to swell and draw away from him. As Larry and the plane grew smaller, the relative size of the violent ray increased, so there was no longer much danger of flying out of it. It seemed that he flew through a world of violent flame. He met a curious problem in time. It is evident that time passes faster for a small animal than for a large one, because nerve currents require a shorter time in transit, and all thought and action is consequently speeded up. It took a hundred-foot dinosaur nearly a second to know that his tail had been pinched. A fly can get underway in time to escape a descending swatter. The pygmy planet rotated in a few seconds of Earth-time. One of its inhabitants might have lived, aged, and died in the duration of a single day in our larger world. So Larry found that time seemed to pass more rapidly, or rather that the time of the world he had left appeared to move more slowly as he adventured into smallness. He had been flying, it seemed to him, nearly an hour, when he reached the level of the planet's equator. Now it seemed a vast world filling half the visible universe. He flew toward it steadily until he knew, by the fading before him of the violent flame, which now seemed to fill all space, that he was near the edge of the ray. And as he flew, he watched the little scale upon which the black needle was now nearing the line marked pygmy planet to normal, circling slowly, keeping always on the level of the planet's equator and near the edge of the violent ray so as to be as close as possible to his landing-place when he reached the proper size. He watched the creeping black needle, to he scanned with eager eyes the planet floating before him. Bare red deserts, narrow strips of green vegetation, shrunken blue oceans, silvery lines of rivers, past and fascinating panorama beneath his eyes. The rate of the planet's spinning seemed continually to lessen with the changing of his own sense of time. Agnes! Larry thought of her with a curious, eager pain in his heart. She was somewhere on that strange ancient world a prisoner of weird machine monsters, intended victim of a grotesque sacrificial ceremony. Could he find her in the vastness of an unfamiliar world, and having found her, would there be a chance to rescue her from her hideous captors? The project seemed insane. But Larry felt a queer, unfamiliar urge which he knew would drive him on until he had discovered and saved her, or until he was dead. At last, when it seemed to Larry nearly three hours since he had begun this amazing flight, the crawling ebb and needle reached the mark pygmy planet normal. He flew out of the wall of violent flame toward the planet's surface. Before, the distance between the planet and the raised edge had seemed only the fraction of an inch. Now it appeared to be many miles. Abruptly the pygmy planet, which had seemed to be beside him, appeared to swing about so that it was beneath him. He knew that it was change merely in his sensations. He was feeling the gravitation of the new world. It was pulling him toward it. He cut the throttle and settled the plane into a long glide, a glide that was to end upon the surface of a new planet. In what seemed half an hour more, Larry had made a safe landing upon the pygmy planet. He had come down upon a stretch of fairly smooth red sandy desert, which seemed to stretch illimitably toward the rising sun, which direction Larry instinctively termed east. To the west was a line of dull green, evidently the vegetation along a stream. The ochre desert was scattered with sparse lumps of reddish spiky scrub. Larry taxied the plane into one of those thickets. Finding canvas and rope in the cabin, he staked down the machine and muffled the motor. Then, selecting a rifle and a heavy automatic from the weapons in the cabin, and filling his pockets with extra ammunition, he left the plane and set out with brisk steps toward the green line of vegetation. Now he'll follow along the river, he reasoned. It may lead me somewhere and it will show the way back to the plane. I may come across something in the way of a clue. Can't go exploring by air or I'll burn up all the gas and be stranded here. To his surprise, the water-course proved to be an ancient canal, walled with crumbling masonry. Its channel was choked with mud and thorny thick-leaved desert shrubs of unfamiliar variety, but a feeble current still flowed along it. After some reflection, Larry set out along the banks of the canal. He followed it for two days. Curious straight bars of light were visible across the sky. A band of violet in the morning, one of crimson at evening. Their apparent motion was in the same direction as that of the sun. The bars of light puzzled him considerably before it occurred to him that they must be the red and violet rays. So you wait till evening and then fly up into the red ray to go home, he muttered. But I may not need that information, he added grimly. Seems to be a pretty big job to search a planet on foot for one person, and I'm not going back without Agnes. In the afternoon of the second day he came within view of a city. He could discern vast imposing walls and towers of dark stone. It stood in the barren red desert far back from the green line of the old canal. Larry left the canal and started wirrily across toward it. He had covered several miles of the distance before he saw that the lofty towers were falling, the magnificent walls crumbling, the city was ruined, dead, deserted. The realization brought him a great flood of despair. He had hope to find people, friends, from whom he might get food, and information about this unfamiliar planet. But the city was dead. Larry was standing there in the midst of the vast red plain between ruined city and ruined canal, tired, hungry, lonely, and helpless. He was looking up at the white sun trying to comfort himself with the thought that the brilliant luminary was merely a queer blue lamp that he was upon a tiny experimental world in a laboratory. But the thought brought him no relief, only confusion and a sense of incredulity. Then he saw the machine monster, a glittering winged thing of crystalline green metal identical with the one he had encountered in the laboratory. It must already have seen him for it was dropping swiftly toward him. Larry started to run, took a few staggering steps. Then he recalled the heavy rifle slung over his shoulder. Moving with desperate haste, he got it into his hands and raised it just as the monster dropped to the red sand a dozen yards away from him. Suddenly he covered the crystal cylinder within which the thing's brain floated in luminous violet liquid, his finger tightened on the trigger, ready to send a heavy bullet crashing into it. Then he paused, swore softly, lowered the gun. If I kill it, he murmured, I may never find Agnes, and if I let it carry me off it may take me where she is. He walked toward the monster across the red sand. It stood uncertainly upon green metal legs, seeming to stare at him strangely with eye like lenses. Its wings of thin green metal plates were folded. Its four green tentacles were twitching oddly. Abruptly it sprang upon him. A green tentacle seized the rifle and snatched it from his hands. He felt the automatic pistol and the ammunition being removed from his pockets. Then, firmly held in the flexible arms of green metal, he was lifted against the cylinder of violet liquid. The monster spread its broad emerald wings, and Larry was swiftly born into the air. In a few minutes the wide ruins of the ancient city were spread below him, with the green line of the choked canal cutting the infinite red waste of the desert beyond it. The monster flew westward. For a considerable time nothing save Barron, Ocarus Desert was in view. Then Larry's weird captor flew near a strange city, a city of green metal. The buildings were most fantastic. Pyramids of green crowned with enormous glistening spires of emerald metal, an impassable wall surrounding the city. Larry had expected the monster to drop into the city, but it carried him on and finally settled to the ground several miles beyond. The green tentacles released him as the thing landed, and he sprawled beside it, dizzy after his strange flight. As Larry staggered uncertainly to his feet, he saw that the monster had released him in an open pin. It was a square area, nearly fifty yards on each side, and fenced with thin posts or rods of green metal perhaps twenty feet high, set very close together and sharply pointed at the top, they formed a barrier apparently insurmountable. In the center of the pin was a huge and strange machine built of green metal. It looked very worn and ancient. It was covered with patches of bluish rust or corrosion. At first it looked quite strange to Larry. Then he was struck by a vaguely familiar quality about it. Looking closer, he realized that it was a colossal steam hammer. Its design, of course, was unfamiliar, but in the vast corroded frame he quickly picked out a steam-chest, cylinder, and the great hammer weighing many tons. He gasped when his eyes went to the anvil. A man was chained across it. A man in torn, grimy clothes, fastened with fetters of green metal upon wrists and ankles, so that his body was stretched beneath the massive hammer. He seemed to be unconscious. Upon his head which was turned toward Larry was a red and swollen bruise. The monster which had dropped Larry within the pin rose again into the air. And Larry started forward, trying to remember just what Agnes had told him of a machine to which the monster sacrificed. This must be the machine, this ancient steam hammer. As he moved forward, Agnes came into view. She walked around the massive base of the great machine, carrying a bowl filled with a fragrant brown liquid. She stopped at the sight of Larry and uttered a little cry. The bowl fell from her hands and the fragrant liquid splashed out on the ground. Her brown eyes went wide with delighted surprise. Then a look of pain came into them. Larry! Larry! she cried. Why did you come? To get you. He answered, trying to speak as lightly as he could. And the best way I knew to find you was to let one of the monsters bring me. Cheer up! But even to himself his voice had a tone of discouragement. She smiled, wanly. I don't see anything to be cheerful about. Her small face was set and a little white. Dr. Whiting is going to be smashed under the hammer of this dreadful machine whenever the steam is up. Then it's my turn and yours. That's nothing to laugh about. But we aren't smashed yet, Larry insisted. By the way, what was in that bowl? He went on, glancing down. I forgot to bring lunch. He grinned. She looked down, startled. Oh! Dr. Whiting's soup. Poor fellow, I'm afraid he'll never awake to eat it. There's plenty more. Come around here. She picked up the bowl and let him around the base of the machine. Then she filled the bowl again with the fragrant red-brown liquid from a tall urn of green metal. Larry took the dish equally and gulp down the rather insipid and tasteless food. And the monsters worshipped this old steam-hammer, he inquired, when his hunger was appeased? Yes. I think the thing is worked by steam generated by volcanic heat. Anyhow, there isn't any boiler, and the steam-pipe comes up out of the ground. You can see that. So it runs on without any attention, though I guess the heat is dying down since it is several days between the two. And I guess the monsters have forgotten how they used to rule machines. They seem to have depended upon machines, even giving up their own bodies for mechanical ones, until the machine ruled them. And when this old hammer kept pounding on through the ages, using volcanic steam, I guess they got to considering it alive. They began to regard it as an old steam-hammer. They got to considering it alive. They began to regard it as a sort of god, and when they got the idea of giving it sacrifices it was natural enough to place the victims under the hammer. They went back to Dr. Whiting, who was chained across the anvil. He was still breathing, but unconscious. He had been injured in a struggle with the monsters, and his body was much emaciated. Agnes explained that he had been a prisoner in the pen for many months of the time of this world, waiting his turn to die. She said that the monsters had just completed the extermination of another race upon the pygmy planet, and were just turning to the greater world for victims. Larry noticed that the great hammer was slowly rising in its guides as the pressure of the steam from the planet's interior increased. In a few hours, just at sunset, it reached the top of its stroke. The air above the pen was suddenly filled with glittering swarms of the green-winged monsters, sweeping slowly about in measured flight with strange order in their masses. They had come to witness the sacrifice. With an explosive rush of steam the hammer came down. The ground trembled beneath the terrific blow. The roaring of escaping steam and the crash of the impact were almost deafening. A heavy white cloud shrouded the corroded green machine. When the hammer slowly lifted, only a red smear was left. Agnes had shrunk, trembling against Larry's shoulder. He had put his arms about her and was holding her almost fiercely. My turn next, she whispered, and don't try to fight them. It will only make them hurt you. I can't let them take you, Agnes. Larry cried in an agonized voice, and the words seemed to leap out of themselves, because I love you. You do? Agnes cried in a thin, choking voice, pressing herself against him. Ever since the first time you came to the laboratory, a score of the monster-forms of violet-filled crystal and gleaming green metal had dropped into the pen. They tore Agnes from Larry's arms, hurling him roughly to the ground at the bottom of the green metal fence. For some time he was unconscious. When he had staggered painfully to his feet, it was night. The monsters were gone. The starless sky was black and empty. Calling out weakly and stumbling about the pen, he found Agnes. She was chained where Dr. Whiting had been. She was conscious, unharmed. For a time they talked a little, exchanging broken incoherent phrases. Then they went to sleep lying on the anvil beneath that mighty hammer that was slowly lifting to strike another fearful blow. When the sun had risen again, Larry brought Agnes some of the brown suit from the metal urn which had been filled again. Then when he had satisfied himself, he started clambering up the massive frame of the hammer. If he could put it out of commission, it was a difficult task. He slipped back many times, and finally had to choose another place to make the ascent. Twice he slipped and almost fell from a considerable height, but finally he reached the massive wheel of the valve which seemed to control the admission of steam into the cylinder above the hammer. If he could but close that, the steam would be confined in the chest below, and when the pressure reached a certain point, something should happen. The valve was not easy to turn. It seemed fixed with the corrosion of Agnes. For hours Larry wrestled with it. Then he left it realizing that he must find something to use for a hammer. A vigorous search of the pin's hard earth floor failed to reveal any stone that would do. He turned his attention to the machine and, presently, saw a slender projecting lever high up on the side of the vast frame which looked as if it had been weakened by corrosion. After a perilous climb, he reached the bar of green metal and swung his weight upon it. It broke, and he plunged to the ground with the bar in his hand, clambering up once more to the great valve. He hammered it until the rust that stiffened it was loosened. Then he struggled with the valve until it was closed. We'll see what happens, he muttered. Returning to the ground, he set to work to break the green metal fetters upon Agnes' wrists and ankles, using the broken lever as hammer and file. For the greater part of six days he toiled at that task, while the great hammer rose slowly. But the green metal had to be removed from the ground as soon as it was slowly. But the green metal seemed very hard. One arm was free at the end of the second day, the other on the fourth. He had one ankle loose on the morning of the sixth day, but as evening came on and the great hammer reached the top of its stroke, the fourth chain still defied him. Before sunset a swarm of the monsters appeared, wheeling on green wings. He was forced to leave his work hiding his improvised file. Agnes still lay across the anvil to conceal from the monsters the fact that the chains were broken. Larry set close beside her nursing hands that were blistered and sore from his days of filing of the chains. A sudden clatter came from the huge mechanism above them and a sharp piece of steam which became louder. It works! Larry whispered to Agnes. The old valve held and the steam can't get into the cylinder to smash us. But Hala knows what will happen when the pressure rises in that old steam chest. Darkness came. Dusk swallowed the wheeling machine monsters. All night Larry and Agnes waited silently together on the great anvil, listening to the hissing steam from above, which was slowly becoming a shrill monotonous scream, monotonous, always higher, shriller. The sun rose again. Still the green-winged monsters wheeled about. They came in glittering swarms, thousands of them. They came nearer the machine now and flew about more swiftly as if excited. Then it happened. There was a roar like thunder and a colossal bellowing explosion. The air was filled suddenly with scalding steam and with screaming fragments of the bursting steam chest. In the midst of it all Larry felt a crushing blow upon his head and a blanket of darkness fell upon him. The monsters are all gone, darling! Agnes' voice reached him, as though they were very much frightened. And a piece of the old hammer hit the fence and knocked a hold in it. You must go. Leave me. Leave you? Larry groaned, struggling to sit up. Not a bit of it. He touched his head gingerly, felt a swollen bruise. Collecting a few fragments of a wrecked machine to serve as tools, he fell to work again upon Agnes' remaining chain. Already he had cut a deep groove in it. Two hours later it was broken. Carrying the metal urn of brownish liquid, they crept out through the hole in the fence which had been torn by the flying fragment of a broken casing of green metal. They left the wreck of the machine which a strange race had worshiped as a bloody god and hurried furtively into the desert of red sand. Making a wide circuit about the fantastic city of green metal, which Larry had seen from the air, they struck out eastward across the desolate, luxurious waste. The food of the urn eaten sparingly lasted until the end of the eighth day. On the morning of the ninth they came in view of the green line of the ancient canal. It was hours later that they staggered weakly over its wall of crumbling masonry, clambered down into the muddy, we-grown channel, and drank thirstily of green, tepid water. Larry found his old trail beyond the canal. They followed it back. In the middle of the afternoon they stumbled up to the thicket of spiky desert growth in which Larry had hidden the plane. The machine was undamaged. Before sunset Larry had removed the stake ropes, slipped the canvas cover from the motor, turned the plane around, inspected it, and examined the strip of smooth hard red sand upon which he had landed. Agnes pointed out the dim band of crimson across the sky from north to south, slowly rising toward the zenith. That's the red ray, she said, we fly into it. And a happy moment when we do, Larry rejoined. He roused the motor to life. As the bar of crimson light neared the zenith, the plane rolled forward across the sand and took off. Climbing steeply, Larry anxiously watched the approach of the red band. The gravitation of the picnic planet seemed to diminish as he gained altitude until presently he could fly vertically from it without circling it at all. He set the bow toward the scarlet bar across the sky before him. And suddenly he was flying through ruby flame. His eyes went to the little scale at the corner of the instrument board. He saw the little ebb and needle waver leave the mark designated pygmy planet normal and start toward earth normal. For it seemed a long time he was wheeling down the crimson ray. A few times he looked back at Agnes in the rear seat. She had gone to sleep. Then a vast circular field was below, the crystal platform. Larry landed the plane upon it, taxi to the center and stopped there with the motor idling. The laboratory, taking shape in the blue abyss about him, seemed to contract swiftly. Presently the plane covered most of the crystal disk. He taxied quickly off, stopped on the floor nearby and cut the ignition. Agnes woke. Together they clambered from the plane's cap and then walked back into the crimson ray. Once more the vast spaces of the room seemed to shrink until it looked familiar once more. The pygmy planet and the huge machine looming over them dwindled to natural size. Agnes watching a scale on the frame of the mechanism which Larry had not noticed, leaped suddenly from the red ray drawing him with her. We don't want to be giants, she laughed. Larry drew a deep breath and looked about him. Once more he was in his own world and surveying it in his normal size. He became aware of Agnes standing close against him. He suddenly took her in his arms and kissed her. Wait a minute, she objected, slipping quickly from his arms. What are we going to do about the pygmy planet? Those monsters might come again even if you did wreck their god. And Dr. Whiting, poor fellow, but we mustn't let those monsters come back. Larry doubled up a brown fist and drove it with all his strength against the little globe that spun so steadily between the twin upright cylinders of crimson and a violet flame. His hand went deep into it and it swung from its position, hung unsteadily for a moment, and then crashed to the laboratory floor. It was crushed like a ball of soft brown mud. It splattered. No, I guess they won't come back, Agnes said. They pity to spoil all Dr. Whiting's work, though. Larry was standing motionless, holding up his fist and looking at it oddly. I smashed a planet. Think of it, I smashed a planet. Just the other why it was just this evening at the office. I was wishing for something to happen. End of The Pygmy Planet.