downward.
“Well,” said Volmar, “if they can do it, I guess it is safe for us also. There must be a current of some gravity-negating force in the shaft.”
He stepped over the circular verge, and felt as if he were being born on invisible cushions that sank slowly down between the walls of the shaft. His crew followed, and after them came the remaining three of the delegation of guides.
The shaft descended for a well-nigh incalculable distance, far greater than the height of any terrestrial building. At regular intervals there were landings that gave on the various innumerable stories of the edifice; and there were glimpses of unending rows of titan columns in rooms that seemed to stretch without walls till they terminated in far-off balconies; and there were smaller rooms whose construction displayed an unfamiliar geometry, where scores and hundreds of the metal-sharded people were engaged in tasks of an unsurmisable nature by the light from glowing spheres of ever-shifting iridescent colors that hung in mid-air without chains or brackets. Also, there were glimpses of the second shaft, in which people were continually ascending, and from which they could step on any of the landings as if by a mere effort of will.
Roverton and Jasper were side by side in the pit, behind Volmar.
“This is certainly a superior kind of elevator system,” remarked Jasper, “I’d give something to know the secret of its operation.”
“From all indications,” rejoined Roverton, “we have struck a world whose mechanical knowledge and masterdom of natural forces make our scientific accomplishments look like simple arithmetic beside algebra and trigonometry.”
After several minutes of that feather-like descent, which was accompanied by the sensation of an almost total loss of bodily weight, the earthlings reached the ground floor of the edifice. Here, in a mile-long hall with ceilings of tremendous height, the three preceding guides awaited them; and they were joined in a few moments by the others.
Now they were led along vistas of quadrangular columns more enormous than dolomites, through which there poured a saffron light of unbearable brilliance, emanating from the end of the hall. They passed many doors and intersecting halls, open or shut, and equally mysterious in what they concealed or revealed. Then, through a semi-circular portal, they entered a chamber of more moderate size, with septagonal walls. This chamber was the source of the light, which streamed from a huge globe suspended in mid-air. Beneath the globe, on a lofty tripodal chair of some electrum-like substance with alternate gleams of gold and silver, there sat a being who differed from the rest in the vaster dimensions of his bright orbicular head, which seemed to overweigh his wedge-shaped body like a full moon ensconced on a semi-lune. This entity turned his one eye, which resembled a great fiery carbuncle, on the earth-men; and addressed their guides in a voice of flute-like sweetness and modulation. One of the delegation left the room forthwith, and returned with a singular instrument, scarcely comparable in its form to anything used on earth, with many lenses of a transparent material arranged behind each other in a frame of spiral rods and arabesque filaments. This instrument was now fastened by a large circlet to the forehead of the being who sat upon the tripodal chair.
The being lifted one of his many-jointed limbs, and pointed at the bare, windowless wall of the room, which gleamed in the saffron light like a polished surface of reflecting mineral. There, as the men gazed, a picture suddenly sprang into life, as if from the slide of a magic lantern, and filled the entire opposite face of the wall. It was a picture of the red world as the voyagers had beheld it hanging in space on their first approach. Above the world there hovered a tiny glimmering speck; and as the great orb grew larger, till only a portion of its surface was depicted on the wall, it
“Well,” said Volmar, “if they can do it, I guess it is safe for us also. There must be a current of some gravity-negating force in the shaft.”
He stepped over the circular verge, and felt as if he were being born on invisible cushions that sank slowly down between the walls of the shaft. His crew followed, and after them came the remaining three of the delegation of guides.
The shaft descended for a well-nigh incalculable distance, far greater than the height of any terrestrial building. At regular intervals there were landings that gave on the various innumerable stories of the edifice; and there were glimpses of unending rows of titan columns in rooms that seemed to stretch without walls till they terminated in far-off balconies; and there were smaller rooms whose construction displayed an unfamiliar geometry, where scores and hundreds of the metal-sharded people were engaged in tasks of an unsurmisable nature by the light from glowing spheres of ever-shifting iridescent colors that hung in mid-air without chains or brackets. Also, there were glimpses of the second shaft, in which people were continually ascending, and from which they could step on any of the landings as if by a mere effort of will.
Roverton and Jasper were side by side in the pit, behind Volmar.
“This is certainly a superior kind of elevator system,” remarked Jasper, “I’d give something to know the secret of its operation.”
“From all indications,” rejoined Roverton, “we have struck a world whose mechanical knowledge and masterdom of natural forces make our scientific accomplishments look like simple arithmetic beside algebra and trigonometry.”
After several minutes of that feather-like descent, which was accompanied by the sensation of an almost total loss of bodily weight, the earthlings reached the ground floor of the edifice. Here, in a mile-long hall with ceilings of tremendous height, the three preceding guides awaited them; and they were joined in a few moments by the others.
Now they were led along vistas of quadrangular columns more enormous than dolomites, through which there poured a saffron light of unbearable brilliance, emanating from the end of the hall. They passed many doors and intersecting halls, open or shut, and equally mysterious in what they concealed or revealed. Then, through a semi-circular portal, they entered a chamber of more moderate size, with septagonal walls. This chamber was the source of the light, which streamed from a huge globe suspended in mid-air. Beneath the globe, on a lofty tripodal chair of some electrum-like substance with alternate gleams of gold and silver, there sat a being who differed from the rest in the vaster dimensions of his bright orbicular head, which seemed to overweigh his wedge-shaped body like a full moon ensconced on a semi-lune. This entity turned his one eye, which resembled a great fiery carbuncle, on the earth-men; and addressed their guides in a voice of flute-like sweetness and modulation. One of the delegation left the room forthwith, and returned with a singular instrument, scarcely comparable in its form to anything used on earth, with many lenses of a transparent material arranged behind each other in a frame of spiral rods and arabesque filaments. This instrument was now fastened by a large circlet to the forehead of the being who sat upon the tripodal chair.
The being lifted one of his many-jointed limbs, and pointed at the bare, windowless wall of the room, which gleamed in the saffron light like a polished surface of reflecting mineral. There, as the men gazed, a picture suddenly sprang into life, as if from the slide of a magic lantern, and filled the entire opposite face of the wall. It was a picture of the red world as the voyagers had beheld it hanging in space on their first approach. Above the world there hovered a tiny glimmering speck; and as the great orb grew larger, till only a portion of its surface was depicted on the wall, it
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