Ulysses S. Grant - "State of the Union Addresses of Ulysses S. Grant"

Fannie E. Newberry - "Sara, a Princess"

William Shakespeare - "All's Well That Ends Well"

Edward S. Ellis - "The Huge Hunter"

The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix

H >> Homer Eon Flint >> The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix




"And for the labor," reminded the big man, "of such brains as
Rolla's and Dulnop's. It be not right that They should drive us so!"

"Aye," agreed the younger man, with much less enthusiasm. "However,
what can ye do about it, Corrus?"

The big man's face flushed, and he all but snarled. "I tell ye what
I can do I, and ye as well, if ye but will! I can--"

He stopped, one hand upraised in mighty emphasis, and a sudden and
startling change came over him. Downright fear drove the anger from
his face; his massive body suddenly relaxed, and all his power and
vigor seemed to crumble and wilt. His hands shook; his mouth
trembled. At the same time the two women shrank from him, each
giving an inarticulate cry of alarm and distress. Dulnop gave no
sound, but the anger which had left the herdsman seemed to have come
to him; the youngster's eyes flared and his breast heaved. His gaze
was fixed upon Corrus's neck, where the sweat of fear already
glistened.

Suddenly the big man dropped his head, as though in surrender. He
gasped and found voice; this time a voice as shaky and docile as it
had been strong and dominant a moment before.

"Very well," he spoke abjectly. "Very well. I--shall do as you
wish." He seemed to be talking to thin air. "We--will go home at
once."

And instantly all four turned about, and in perfect silence took the
back trail.







III

WORLD OF MAMMOTHS





Immediately upon going into tele-consciousness Smith became aware of
a decided change in his surroundings. The interior of the study had
been darkened with drawn shades; now he was using eyes that were
exposed to the most intense sunlight. The first sight that he got,
in fact, was directed toward the sky; and he noted with an
engineer's keen interest that the color of the sky was blue,
slightly tinged with orange. This, he knew, meant that the
atmosphere of Sanus contained at least one chemical element which is
lacking on the earth.

For a minute or two the sky remained entirely clear. There were no
clouds whatever; neither did any form of winged life make its
appearance. So Smith took note of sounds.

Presumably his agent--whoever or whatever it might be--was located
in some sort of aircraft; for an extremely loud and steady buzzing,
suggesting a powerful engine, filled the engineer's borrowed ears.
Try as he might, however, he could not identify the sound exactly.
It was more like an engine than anything else, except that the
separate sounds which comprised the buzz occurred infinitely close
together. Smith concluded that the machine was some highly developed
rotary affair, working at perhaps six or eight thousand revolutions
a minute--three or four times as fast as an ordinary engine.

Meanwhile his agent continued to stare into the sky. Shortly
something arrived in the field of vision; a blurred speck, far to
one side. It approached leisurely, with the unknown agent watching
steadfastly. It still remained blurred, however; for a long time the
engineer knew as little about its actual form as he knew about his
mysterious agent.

Then, like a flash, the vision cleared. All the blurring disappeared
instantly, and the form of a buzzard was disclosed. It was almost
directly overhead, about a quarter of a mile distant, and soaring in
a wide spiral. No sound whatever came from it. Smith's agent made no
move of any kind, but continued to watch.

Shortly the buzzard "banked" for a sharper turn; and the engineer
saw, by the perspective of its apparent speed, that the aircraft
whose use he was enjoying was likewise on the move. Apparently it
was flying in a straight line, keeping the sun--an object vastly too
brilliant to examine--on the right.

The buzzard went out of sight. Once more the clear sky was all that
could be seen; that, and the continual roar of the engine, were all
that Smith actually knew. He became impatient for his agent to look
elsewhere; it might be that the craft contained other specimens of
the unknown creatures. But there was no change in the vigilant watch
which was being kept upon the sky.

Suddenly the engineer became exceedingly alert. He had noticed
something new--something so highly different from anything he had
expected to learn that it was some minutes before he could believe
it true.

His borrowed eyes had no eyelids! At least, if they did, they were
never used. Not once did they flicker in the slightest; not once did
they blink or wink, much less close themselves for a momentary rest
from the sun's glare. They remained as stonily staring as the eyes
of a marble statue.

Then something startling happened. With the most sickening
suddenness the aircraft came to an abrupt halt. Smith's senses swam
with the jolt of it. All about him was a confused jumble of blurred
figures and forms; it was infinitely worse than his first ride in a
hoist. In a moment, however, he was able to examine things fairly
well.

The aircraft had come to a stop in the middle of what looked like a
cane brake. On all sides rose yellowish-green shafts, bearing leaves
characteristic of the maize family. Smith knew little about cane,
yet felt sure that these specimens were a trifle large. "Possibly
due to difference in gravitation," he thought.

However, he could not tell much about the spot on which the machine
had landed. For a moment it was motionless; the engine had been
stopped, and all was silent except for the gentle rustling of the
cane in the field. The unknown operator did not change his position
in the slightest.

Then the craft began to move over the surface, in a jerky, lurching
fashion which indicated a very rough piece of ground. At the same
time a queer, leathery squeaking came to the engineer's borrowed
ears; he concluded that the machine was being sorely strained by the
motion. At the time he was puzzled to account for the motion itself.
Either there was another occupant of the craft, who had climbed out
and was now pushing the thing along the ground, or else some form of
silent mechanism was operating the wheels upon which, presumably,
the craft was mounted. Shortly the motion stopped altogether.

It was then that Smith noticed something he had so far ignored
because he knew his own dinner hour was approaching. His agent was
hungry, like himself. He noticed it because, just then, he received
a very definite impression of the opposite feeling; the agent was
eating lunch of some sort, and enjoying it. There was no doubt about
this. All that Smith could do was to wish, for the hundredth time,
that he could look around a little and see what was being eaten, and
how.

The meal occupied several minutes. Not once did the strange occupant
of that machine relax his stony stare at the sky, and Smith tried to
forget how hungry he was by estimating the extent of his vision. He
decided that the angle subtended about a hundred and sixty degrees,
or almost half a circle; and he further concluded that if his agent
possessed a nose, it was a pretty trifling affair, too small to be
noticed. It was obvious, too, that the fellow's mouth was located
much lower in the face than normal. He ate without showing a single
particle of food, and did it very quietly.

At length hunger was satisfied. There was complete stillness and
silence for a moment, then another short lurching journey through
the cane; and next, with an abruptness that made the engineer's
senses swim again, the fellow once more took to the air. The speed
with which he "got away" was enough to make a motorcyclist, doing
his best, seem to stand still.

It took time for Smith to regain his balance. When he did, the same
unbroken expanse of sky once more met his gaze; but it was not long
until, out of the corners of those unblinking eyes, he could make
out bleary forms which shortly resolved themselves into mountain
tops. It was odd, the way things suddenly flashed into full view.
One second they would be blurred and unrecognizable; the next,
sharply outlined and distinct as anything the engineer had ever
seen. Yet, there seemed to be no change in the focus of those eyes.
It wasn't as though they were telescopic, either. Not until long
afterward did Smith understand the meaning of this.

The mountains grew higher and nearer. Before long it seemed as
though the aircraft was entering some sort of a canon. Its sides
were only sparsely covered with vegetation, and all of it was quite
brown, as though the season were autumn. For the most part the
surface was of broken rock and boulders.

Within a space of three or four minutes the engineer counted not
less than ten buzzards. The unknown operator of the machine,
however, paid no attention to them, but continued his extraordinary
watch of the heavens. Smith began to wonder if the chap were not
seated in an air-tight, sound-proof chamber, deep in the hull of
some great aerial cruiser, with his eyes glued fast to a periscope.
"Maybe a sky patrol," thought the man of the earth; "a cop on the
lookout for aerial smugglers, like as not."

And then came another of those terrifying stops. This time, as soon
as he could collect his senses, the engineer saw that the machine
had landed approximately in the middle of the canon, and presumably
among the boulders in its bottom. For all about it were the tops of
gigantic rocks, most of them worn smooth from water action. And, as
soon as the engine stopped, Smith plainly heard the roar of water
right at hand. He could not see it, however. Why in the name of
wonder didn't the fellow look down, for a change?

The craft began to move. This time its motion was smoother arguing
an even surface. However, it had not gone far before, to the
engineer's astonishment, it began to move straight down a slope so
steep that no mechanism with which Smith was familiar could possibly
have clung to it. As this happened, his adopted eyes told him that
the craft was located upon one of those enormous boulders, in the
center of a stream of such absolute immensity that he fairly gasped.
The thing was--colossal!

And yet it was true. The unseen machine deliberately moved along
until it was actually clinging, not to the top, but to the side of
the rock. The water appeared to be about five yards beneath, to the
right. To the left was the sky, while the center of that strange
vision was now upon a similar boulder seemingly a quarter of a mile
distant, farther out in the stream. But the fellow at the periscope
didn't change position one whit!

It was so unreal. Smith deliberately ignored everything else and
watched again for indications of eyelids. He saw not one flicker,
but noticed a certain tiny come-and-go, the merest sort of
vibration, which indicated the agent's heart-action. Apparently it
beat more than twice as fast as Smith's.

But it relieved him to know that his agent was at least a genuine
living being. For a moment he had fancied something utterly
repellent to him. Suppose this Sanusian were not any form of natural
creature at all, but some sort of supermachine, capable of
functioning like an organism? The thought made the engineer shudder
as no morgue could.

Presently the queer craft approached the water closely enough, and
at such an angle, that Smith looked eagerly for a reflection.
However, the water was exceedingly rough, and only a confused
brownish blur could be made out. Once he caught a queer sound above
the noise of the water; a shrill hiss, with a harsh whine at the
end. "Just like some kind of suction apparatus," as he later
described it.

And then, with that peculiar sound fresh in his ears, came the
crowning shock of the whole experience. Floating toward the boulder,
but some distance away, was what looked like a black seed. Next
moment the vision flashed clear, as usual, and the engineer saw that
the object was really a beetle; and in a second it was so near that
Smith's own body, back on the earth, involuntarily shrank back into
the recesses of his chair.

For that beetle was an enormity in the most unlimited sense of the
word. It was infinitely larger than any beetle the engineer had ever
seen--infinitely! It was as large as a good-sized horse!

But before Smith could get over his amazement there was a rush and a
swirl in the water behind the insect. Spray was dashed over the
rock, a huge form showed itself indistinctly beneath the waves, and
next instant the borrowed eyes were showing the engineer, so clearly
as to be undeniable, the most astounding sight he had ever seen.

A fish of mountainous size leaped from the water, snapped the beetle
into its mouth, and disappeared from sight. In a flash it had come
and gone, leaving the engineer fairly gasping and likewise wondering
how he could possibly expect anybody to believe him if he told the
bald truth of what he had seen.

For he simply could not have invented anything half as incredible.
The fish simply could not be described with ordinary language. IT
WAS AS LARGE AS THE LARGEST LOCOMOTIVE.






IV

THE GOLD-MINER





As for Van Emmon, his experience will have to be classed with
Smith's. That is to say, he soon came to feel that his agent was not
what is commonly called human. It was all too different. However, he
found himself enjoying a field of view which was a decided
improvement upon Smith's. Instead of a range which began and ended
just above the horizon, his agent possessed the power of looking
almost straight ahead.

This told the geologist that his unsuspecting Sanusian was located
in an aircraft much like the other. The same tremendous noise of the
engine, the same inexplicable wing action, together with the same
total lack of the usual indications of human occupancy, all argued
that the two men had hit upon the same type of agent. In Van Emmon's
case, however, he could occasionally glimpse two loose parts of the
machine, flapping and swaying oddly from time to time within the
range of the observer, and at the front. Nothing was done about it.
Van Emmon came to the same conclusion as Smith; the operator was
looking into something like a periscope. Perhaps he himself did not
do the driving.

From what the geologist could see of the country below, it was quite
certainly cultivated. In no other way could the even rows and
uniform growth be explained; even though Van Emmon could not say
whether the vegetation were tree, shrub, or plant, it was certainly
the work of man-or some-thing mightily like man.

Shortly he experienced an abrupt downward dive, such as upset his
senses somewhat. When he recovered, he had time for only the
swiftest glance at what, he thought rather vaguely, was a great
green-clad mountain. Then his agent brought the craft to one of
those nerve-racking stops; once more came a swimming of the brain,
and then the geologist saw something that challenged his
understanding.

The craft had landed on the rim of a deep pit, or what would have
been called a pit if it had not been so extraordinary. Mainly the
strangeness was a matter of color; the slope was of a brilliant
orange, and seemingly covered with frost, for it sparkled so
brightly in the sun as to actually hurt the eyes. In fact, the
geologist's first thought was "A glacier," although he could not
conceive of ice or snow of that tint.

Running down the sides of the pit were a number of dark-brown
streaks, about a yard wide; Van Emmon could make them out, more or
less clearly, on the other side of the pit as well. From the
irregular way in which the walls were formed, he quickly decided
that the pit was a natural one. The streaks, he thought, might have
been due to lava flow.

His agent proceeded to drive straight over the rim and down the
slope into the pit. His engine was quite stopped; like Smith, the
geologist wondered just how the craft's wheels were operated. Next
he was holding his breath as the machine reached so steep a point
in the slope that, most surely, no brakes could hold it.
Simultaneously he heard the hiss and whine which seemed to indicate
the suction device.

"It was a whole lot like going down into a placer mine," the
geologist afterward said; and in view of what next met his eyes, he
was justified in his guess.

Down crept the machine until it was "standing on its nose." The sun
was shining almost straight down into the slope, and Van Emmon
forgot his uneasiness about the craft in his interest in what he
saw.

The bottom of the pit was perhaps twenty feet in diameter, and
roughly hemispherical. Standing up from its bottom were half a dozen
slim formations, like idealized stalagmites; they were made of some
semitransparent rock, apparently, the tint being a reddish yellow.
Finally, perched on the top of each of these was a stone; and
surrounding these six "landmarks," 'as Van Emmon called them, was
the most prodigious display of wealth imaginable. For the whole
queer place was simply sprinkled with gold. Gold--gold everywhere;
large nuggets of it, as big as one's fist! Not embedded in rock, not
scattered through sand, but lying loose upon the surface of that
unbelievable orange snow! It was overwhelming.

The mysterious Sanusian lost no time. Operating some unseen
machinery, he caused three shovel-like devices to project from the
front of his machine; and these instantly proceeded, so swiftly that
Van Emmon could not possibly watch their action, to pick up nuggets
and stow them away out of sight in what must have been compartments
in the hull. All this was done without any sound beyond the
occasional thud of a nugget dropped in the scramble. Suddenly the
Sanusian wheeled his machine about and started hurriedly up the
slope. Van Emmon judged that the chap had been frightened by
something, for he took flight as soon as he reached the top of the
pit. And--he left half a million in gold behind him!

This new flight had not lasted two minutes before the geologist
began to note other objects in the air. There were birds, so distant
that he could not identify them; one came near enough, however, for
him to conclude that it was a hawk. But he did not hold to this
conclusion very long.

The thing that changed his mind was another aircraft. It approached
from behind, making even more noise than the other, and proceeded to
draw abreast of it. From time to time Van Emmon's agent turned his
mysterious periscope so as to take it all in, and the geologist was
able to watch his fill. Whereupon he became converted to a new idea:
The birds that Smith and he had seen had not been birds at all, but
aircraft built in imitation of them. For this new arrival had been
made in almost perfect imitation of a bee! It was very close to an
exact reproduction. For one exception, it did not have the hairy
appearance so characteristic of bees; the body and "legs" were
smooth and shiny. (Later, Van Emmon saw machines which went so far
as even to imitate the hairs.) Also, instead of trying to duplicate
the two compound eyes which are found, one on each side of a bee's
head, a perfectly round representation of a single eye was built,
like a conning tower, toward the front of the bow. Presumably, the
observer sat or stood within this "head."

But otherwise it was wonderfully like a drone bee. Van Emmon was
strongly reminded of what he had once viewed under a powerful lens.
The fragile semitransparent wings, the misshapen legs, and even the
jointed body with its scale-like segments, all were carefully
duplicated on a large scale. Imagine a bee thirty feet long!

At first the geologist was puzzled to find that it carried a pair of
many-jointed antennae. He could not see how any intelligent being
would make use of them; they were continually waving about, much as
bees wave theirs. Evidently these were the loose objects he had
already noted. "Now," he wondered, "why in thunder did the builders
go to so much trouble for the sake of mere realism?"

Then he saw that the antennae served a very real purpose. There was
no doubt about it; they were wireless antennae!

For presently the newcomer, who so far had not shown himself at any
point on his machine, sent out a message which was read as quickly
as it was received by Van Emmon's agent, and as unconsciously
translated:

"Number Eight Hundred Four, you are wanted on Plot Seventeen."

Whereupon Van Emmon's unknown assistant replied at once:

"Very well, Superior."

It was done by means of an extremely faint humming device, reminding
the geologist of certain wireless apparata he had heard. Not a word
was actually spoken by either Sanusian.

Van Emmon kept a close watch upon the conning tower on the other
machine. The sun was shining upon it in such a fashion that its
gleam made inspection very difficult. Once he fancied that he could
make out a short, compact figure within the "eye"; but he could not
be sure. The glass, or whatever it was, reflected everything within
range.

Was the airman a quadruped? Did he sit or stand upright, like a man?
Or did he use all four limbs, animal-fashion? Van Emmon had to admit
that he could not tell; no wonder he didn't guess the truth.

Shortly after receiving the summons, the geologist's agent changed
his direction slightly; and within ten minutes the machine was
passing over a large grain field. On the far edge was a row of
trees, and it was toward this that the Sanusian proceeded to
volplane, presently coming to another nausea-producing stop. Once
more Van Emmon was temporarily helpless.

When he could look again, he saw that the machine had landed upon a
steep slope, this time with its nose pointing upward. Far above was
what looked like a cave, with a growth of some queer, black grass on
its upper rim. The craft commenced to move upward, over a smooth,
dark tan surface.

In half a minute the machine had reached the top of the slope, and
the geologist looked eagerly for what might lie within the cave. He
was disappointed; it was not a cave at all. Instead, another brown
slope, or rather a bulging precipice, occupied this depression.

Van Emmon looked closer. At the bottom of this bulge was a queer
fringe of the same kind of grass that showed on top of it. Van Emmon
looked from one to the other, and all of a sudden the thing dawned
upon him.

This stupendous affair was no mountainside; it was neither more nor
less than the head of a colossal statue! A mammoth edition of the
Goddess of Liberty; and the aircraft had presumed to alight upon its
cheek!

The machine clung there, motionless, for some time, quite as though
the airman knew that Van Emmon would like to look a long while. He
gazed from side to side as far as he could see, making out a small
section of the nose, also the huge curves of a dust-covered ear. It
was wonderfully life-like.

Next second came the earthquake. The whole statue rocked and swayed;
Van Emmon looked to see the machine thrown off. From the base of the
monument came a single terrific sound, a veritable roar, as though
the thing was being wrenched from the heart of the earth. From
somewhere on top came a spurt of water that splashed just beside the
craft.

Then came the most terrible thing. Without the slightest warning the
statue's great eye opened! Opened wide, revealing a prodigious pupil
which simply blazed with wrath!

The statue was alive!

Next second the Sanusian shot into the air. A moment and Van Emmon
was able to look again, and as it happened, the craft was now
circling the amazing thing it had just quit, so that the geologist
could truthfully say that he was dead sure of what he saw.

He was justified in wanting to be absolutely sure. Resting on the
solid earth was a human head, about fifty yards wide and
proportionately as tall. It was alive; but IT WAS ONLY THE HEAD,
NOTHING MORE.






V

THE SUPER-RACE





It will be remembered that Billie wanted to get in touch with a
creature having the characteristic which she had said she admired:
supremacy--"A worker who is the boss!" Bearing this in mind, her
experience will explain itself, dumfounding though it was.

Her first sight of the Sanusian world was from the front of a large
building. The former architect was not able to inspect it minutely;
but she afterwards said that it impressed her as being entirely
plain, and almost a perfect cube. Its walls were white and quite
without ornament; there was only one entrance, an extremely low and
broad, flat archway, extending across one whole side. The structure
was about a hundred yards each way. In front was a terrace,
seemingly paved with enormous slabs of stone; it covered a good many
acres.

Presumably Billie's agent had just brought her machine from the
building, for, within a few seconds, she took flight in the same
abrupt fashion which had so badly upset Smith and Van Emmon. When
Billie was able to look closely, she found herself gazing down upon
a Sanusian city.

It was a tremendous affair. As the flying-machine mounted higher,
Billie continually revised her guesses; finally she concluded that
London itself was not as large. Nevertheless her astonishment was
mainly directed at the character, not the number of the buildings.

They were all alike! Every one was a duplicate of that she had first
seen: cube-shaped, plain finished, flat of wall and roof. Even in
color they were alike; in time the four came to call the place the
"White City." However, the buildings were arranged quite without any
visible system. And they were vastly puzzled, later on in their
studies, to find every other Sanusian city precisely the same as
this one.

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