Part 30 (1/2)

A City that Saw! A City that was Alive!

No secret mechanism then--back dartedfros None had opened the way for, had closed the way behind, the coursing spheres It had been done by the conscious action of the conscious Things of whose living bodies was built this whole tre pile!

I think that for atruth caripping like frightened children each other's hands Then Drake stopped

”By all the hell of this place,” he said, solemnly, ”I'll run no more

After all--we're men If they kill us, they kill us But by the God who ”

His courage steadied me Defiantly we marched on Up from below us, down froleamed and twinkled upon us

”Who could have believed it?” henest of theht the word What did it suggest? That was it--the nest of the army ants, the city of the arles and once described to me After all, was this more wonderful, more unbelievable than that--the city of ants which was for bodies precisely as this was of the bodies of the Cubes?

How had Beebephrased it--”the home, the nest, the hearth, the nursery, the bridal suite, the kitchen, the bed and board of the army ants”

Built of and occupied by those blind and dead and savage little insects which by the guidance of smell alone carried on the most intricate operations, the er than that, I reflected--if once one could rid theinfluence of the shapes of the Metal Things Whence came the stimuli that moved THEM, the stimuli to which THEY reacted?

William Beebe, Atlantic Monthly, October, 1919

Well then--whence and how came the orders to which the ANTS responded; that bade them open THIS corridor in their nest, close THAT, form this chamber, fill that one? Was oneintowith increased speed; that hter

Sinition I felt myself lifted from the floor of the corridor and levitated with considerable rapidity forward; looking down I saw that floor several feet below me Drake's ar up behind us,” heus--out”

It was, indeed, as though the passageway had wearied of our deliberate progress Had decided to--give us a lift Rearward it was shutting I noted with interest how accurately this motion kept pace with our own speed, and how fluidly the walls seeether

Our h we floated buoyantly, weightless, upon souorous--as that word Ruth had used?--ELEMENTAL--and free The supporting force seemed to flow equally from walls and floor; to reach down to us from the roof It was slumberously even, and effortless I saw that in advance of us the living corridor was opening even as behind us it was closing

All around us the little eye points twinkled and--laughed

There was no danger here--there could be none Deeper and deeper dropped my mind into the depths of that alien tranquillity Faster and faster we floated--onward

Abruptly, ahead of us shone a blaze of daylight We passed into it The force holding us withdrew its grip; I felt solidity beneath ainst a smooth wall

The corridor had ended and--had shut us out froruous, flippant, colloquial as was that word, I know none that would better describe s

We were BOUNCED out upon a turret jutting fro, the most extraordinary fantastic scene upon which, I think, the vision of man has rested since the advent of time