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Wandl the Invader

<h2>10</h2> The room was so large that it seemed almost the entire interior of the building. It was a globular room, a hundred and fifty feet or more in diameter. The inner surface was crowded with people. It was a huge, hollow interior of a ball; and upon its concave surface a throng of the brown-shelled workers were gathered. They sat on low seats at the curved bottom of the room, where we entered, and up the sides and upon the slopes and the top, like flies in a globe, hanging head downward. There was no up or down here; the slight gravity made little difference. I gazed up amazed to where, a hundred and fifty feet above me, head downward, the crowd of figures were calmly seated. These were clinging, of course; the pound-weight of each of them would drop them down if they let loose. But it required only a slight effort. Between the tiers, there were narrow open aisles bearing glowlights at intervals. With Molo leading us, we stared up the curving incline of one of these aisles. "Gregg! Good Lord, it's weird!" Snap said. "Where are we going to sit? Don't speak to the girls yet." "Have you spoken to them?" "Yes. A little, on the ship. They're watching for an opportunity but we have to be cautious. Gregg, I've got so much to tell you, but no chance. The brains can just about hear your thoughts." We went only a short distance up the incline. There were vacant seats seemingly held ready for us. Our passage created a commotion among the figures. Some leaped up and over us to get a better look. I found that we were clinging to the mound-like convex surface of a small half-globe. It raised us some ten feet above the floor. There were low seats with arms against the side-pull of gravity. I found Anita close beside me. Her hand touched me, but she did not turn her head or speak. Molo was on my other side. I chanced to see his feet. They were planted firmly on the floor. He wore wide-soled shoes equipped with suction pads, no doubt, which would enable[80] him, like the Wandlites, to walk and stand upon the upper inner surfaces of buildings. As during the moments when Snap and I stood on the landing esplanade, there was so much here that at first I could not encompass it. But now I began to grasp other details of the strange scene. Poised in mid-air, almost exactly in the center of the huge globular room, was a metal globe of some thirty feet in diameter. It was held, not by any solid girders, but by four narrow beams of light which mounted to it from widespread points of the convex room. Upon the entire surface of this thirty-foot globe, a group of masters were seated, in little, cup-like seats upon resilient stems. They swayed and nodded with movement. There seemed to be glowing wires and grids and thread-like beams of light carrying current. Light-threads shot from the mechanisms to the heads of the seated brains. All the devices were evidently in operation; and upon this poised central globe the attention of the audience was directed. Molo bent over me. "The Great Intelligence soon will see you." Snap, from the other side of Molo, whispered: "What are they doing up there?" The faint hiss and throb of the devices were audible. I stared, trying to understand. Images, and sounds, invisible and inaudible were being received from across the millions of miles of space, and they were being transmuted within the brains themselves. I saw that discs were fastened upon the bulging foreheads of the brains, upon which the tiny light-beams carrying the vibrations impinged. These brains, receiving "waves" of some unknown variety were, within the mechanism of the brain-cell, transmuting, translating the vibrations into things knowable. They were not seeing, not hearing, but knowing what went on millions of miles across space! Again Molo bent over me. "They are about to show this audience what is happening on the three worlds." Upon the thirty-foot globe I saw now a dozen or so balls of about three-foot diameter. These had been dark and I had not noticed them. Now they began glowing, not from[81] wires carrying the current, but from the little hands of the brains touching them. I stared at the brain nearest me. His flabby little arm was extended; his hand touched the image-ball; gave it light and color, like a fortune-teller of Earth with a crystal before her. Even though I was some sixty feet from it, I could see the moving images clearly, and recognized the scene. The Tappan Interplanetary Stage. Ships were rising; two of our spaceships mounting. And all in an instant the scene blurred, took form again. The red-green spires and minarets of Ferrok-Shahn. The Central Canal extended like a gash across the foreground; the "Mushroom Mountains" were in a line upon the horizon. Three Martian space-flyers slid up while we watched. And now Grebhar. The silver forest in all its shining beauty, where Venza was born. The sunlight sparkled on the river. A spaceship was rising in the distant sky over the shining forest. Beyond Anita, I heard Venza murmuring, "Home! If only we were there." I could feel Anita move to silence her. Molo was whispering: "They come. But we will be ready for them." Another image: mid-space. The allied ships gathering, waiting for others to arrive. A group here of about ten of our ships from the three worlds: poised, waiting. I was aware that upon the mound-like protuberance of the room-floor where we were sitting, a door was opening. It slid, or melted away. At our feet was an opening downward into the small interior of the mound. Molo whispered, "The great Master. Sit quiet! He will talk to us." Over us now a barrage came with a hiss, a circular curtain of insulation. The huge globular room faded. We were alone on the mound, Snap, Molo, myself, Anita, Venza and Meka upon the end of our bench. Behind us stood our single Wandlite guard, with a weapon in his shoulder hand. At our feet an opening yawned into the mound-interior. It was a tiny, lighted room. In a cup-like seat a brain was perched, just below the level of our feet: the great Master Brain of Wandl. He was alone here. Not attended by retinue;[82] no pomp and ceremony to usher us into his presence; no underlings obsequiously bowing to mark him for a great ruler. We stared down, and the great brain stared up at us, seemingly equally curious. His head was a full four feet in diameter; the little body sat in the cup, with dangling legs. The clothes were ornamented: there was a glowing device on the chest. He spoke with a measured rumble, in Martian. "You are Molo, of Ferrok-Shahn." "Yes," said Molo. "You must say, 'Yes, Great Master.'" "Yes, Great Master." "I know about you. I know that we trust you." The huge round eyes next fastened upon me. Then to Snap, and back to me. The words were English this time. "Men of Earth, are you decided, like the Martian, to join with us?" I tried with sudden vehemence to still my thoughts, or to change them so that they lied. Fear surged upon me. Could this vast mechanism of human mind here at my feet interpret the vibrations of my thoughts? Could this Great Master of Wandl see into my mind? The brain said, "You are uncertain. You do not want to die?" "No Great Master," we both answered. "You shall not, unless you attempt to cause us trouble. Your thoughts are black." He addressed Molo. "Have they ever been read?" "No, Great Master." "When opportunity comes, have them read." He added to Snap and me: "I plan to take prisoners. My Supreme Rulers, rulers of a neighboring more powerful planet, which sent Wandl upon her mission of conquest, ordered it. When your worlds are vacant of life, those who command me will want some of you left alive to be studied. Your thoughts are very black, Earthman. I think when they are carefully read you will prove no great advantage to us." There was irony in the voice, and upon the monstrous bulging face came the horrible travesty of a grin. The grin on the brain's face faded. His interest went again to Molo. "That is your sister." The eyes swung to Meka and back.[83] "Yes, Great Master." "She is caring for this Earth-girl and this girl from Venus?" "Yes, Great Master. I am fond of them. I have plans." "They are in your charge, Martian; I will not interfere with you. But guard them well. I trust you and your sister. These others...." "The Earth and the Venus girl can be of help to me, Great Master." "How?" "They knew young men who were in the Spaceship Service. They can tell me the armament of men and weapons on most of the spaceships which Earth will send against us." Did Molo really believe that? Probably not, but he wanted the girls with him. Again came that grotesque smile. "Let them not bother you, Martian. You have work to do. Listen carefully. There will be a battle. Earth, Mars, and Venus may perhaps have a hundred ships. I cannot bring destruction upon those three worlds in a day. We soon will make contact with the light-beam you placed on Earth. That I will show you. But the rotation cannot be stopped at once. It will take time. "The enemy ships might dare to come to Wandl, but I shall not wait for that. All my spaceships are very nearly ready. If there is to be a battle, it shall be far from here, in the neighborhood of the enemy worlds. We are at this time about sixty-two million of your miles from the Earth, a third less than that from Mars, and about a third more from Venus. I understand, Martian, that you are skilled in space warfare." The brain went on, "I have given you a vessel to command. You will be surprised to know its name: the Star-Streak." Meka gasped, "But you destroyed it, Great Master!" "Only wrecked it, Martian girl. It is repaired now. You, Molo—and your sister to help you—who could command it to more advantage? All your own weapons, and ours of Wandl have been added. You may select your crew. Is it to your liking?" "Yes, Great Master." "You will be housed in this city, Wor, in the dwelling-globe you occupied before. Keep your prisoners with you, if you like."[84] "These two Earthmen...." began Molo, but he was interrupted. "Settle that later. I do not want the annoyance." I was dimly conscious of a great clanging, coming through the curtain of barrage which was over us. The brain added, "Keep Wyk with you, to guard the prisoners; he will also attend your needs. In the battle, Martian, I expect great things of you and your Star-Streak." "Great Master, you will not be disappointed." "And prisoners, but not too many. Bring me a few young specimens like these, representative of Venus, Mars and the Earth. I want both of the sexes, an equal number of each." "Yes, Great Master." "The warning signal is coming. You will now see our first contact." The light at our feet was fading. It clung last by the gruesome face of the huge brain; the goggling eyes shone green, and as the light in the little mound-room dimmed there was in a moment nothing left but those lurid green pools of the brain's eyes. Then I was aware that the aperture at our feet had closed. Over us, the barrage curtain was dissipating, sight and sound coming in to us. The huge ball-shaped conclave room again became visible, the audience crowding its entire inner surface. I suddenly felt Anita's fingers twitching at my sleeve. "Gregg, darling, can you hear me?" "Yes. Be careful." But Molo was gazing up over our heads. The crowd was shifting, bending so that they all seemed gazing at their feet. A dim white radiance, seeming to come from down here somewhere near us, lay in a splotch on a segment of the throng overhead. Molo was watching. I whispered, "All right, Anita. Quick, what is it?" "The great control station is not far from here. Venza and I have been trying to find out where it is exactly." She stopped, evidently fearful of Meka. Then she added: "Gregg, we haven't been guarded very closely; they're not suspicious of us." "Later, Anita. Can't talk now." "No. Watch our chance. Later."[85] I turned toward Molo. "What's that up there?" "The transparent ray is opening the top of the globe." The clanging signal gong had stilled. The audience was hushed and expectant. The white patch of light overhead spread until it encompassed all the top of the globe. The whole area was glowing. The people were white, spectral shapes, transparent! And the top of the globe was transparent; I saw the night sky, with the gleaming reddish stars. It was, in a moment, as though we were staring up at a huge square window orifice cut in the top of the room. A broad vista of cloudless sky and stars was visible. Across it, like a shining sword, was a narrow, opalescent beam. "The Earth-beam which I planted," Molo whispered triumphantly. "Our control station will contact with it now. The first contact!" Earth was below our angle of vision, but the beam from Greater New York, sweeping the sky with the Earth's rotation, was passing now comparatively close to Wandl. There was an expectant moment. Then into the sky leaped another ray, narrow, luridly green. It swung up from Wandl and darted into space. The hissing, agonized electrical scream from it as it burst through the Wandl atmosphere was deafening. I saw it strike the Earth-beam, grip it with a blinding burst of radiance up there in the sky, clinging, pulling against the rotation of the Earth with a lever sixty million miles long. A moment of screaming sound in the atmosphere around us, and that conflict of light in the sky. Then the screaming suddenly stilled. The Wandl beam vanished. The Earth-beam still swept the heavens like a stiff, upstanding sword. But in that moment when Wandl gripped it, the axis of the Earth had been changed a little. The rotation was slowed. By a few minutes, the day and the night on Earth were lengthened. It was the beginning of Earth's desolation.[86] <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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