Sthalreh, youratomic nature and physical constitution are so different from ours thatthey were unaffected by the energy that ordinarily transports objectshere."
Thus the metal nightmare went rapidly over the control-panel. At lengthPhobar's captor, or another thing like him, reentered when Garboregggflicked a strange-looking protuberance on the panel.
"You will now be returned to your world," came the thought ofGarboreggg. "We shall watch you through our cosmotel to see that youdeliver our instructions. Unless the nations of Earth obey us, they willbe obliterated at the end of seven days."
A wild impulse to smash that impassive, metallic monster passed fromPhobar as quickly as it came. He was helpless. Sick and despairing, hefelt the cold, baffling-colored metal close around him again; once morehe was borne aloft for the journey to the laboratory, from there to bepropelled back to Earth.
* * * * *
Seven days of grace! But Phobar knew that less than ten minutes remainedto him. Only here could he possibly accomplish anything. Once off thesurface of Xlarbti, there was not the remotest chance that all thenations of Earth could reach the invaders or even attempt to defy them.Yet what could he alone do in a week, to say nothing of ten minutes?
He sensed the amused, supercilious contempt of his captor. That wasreally the greatest obstacle, this ability of theirs to readthought-pictures. And already he had given them enough word-pictures ofEnglish so that they could understand....
In the back of Phobar's mind the ghost of a desperate thought suddenlycame. What was it he had learned years ago in college? Homer--"TheOdyssey"--Plutarch.... From rusty, disused corners of memory crept forththe half-forgotten words. He bent all his efforts to the task, notdaring to think ahead or plan ahead or visualize anything but the Greekwords.
He felt the bewilderment of his captor. To throw it off the track,Phobar suddenly let an ancient English nursery rime slip into histhoughts. The disgust that emanated from his captor was laughable;Phobar could have shouted aloud. But the Greek words....
* * * * *
Already the pair had left the mountain-high titan city far behind; theyrippled across the smooth, black surface of Xlarbti, and bore like riflebullets down on the swiftly looming laboratory. In a few minutes itwould be too late forever. Now the lost Greek words burst into Phobar'smind, and, hoping against hope, he thought in Greek word-pictures whichhis captor could not understand. He weighed chances, long shots. Intohis brain flashed an idea.... But they were upon the laboratory; astupendous door dissolved weirdly into shimmering haze; they spedthrough.
Phobar's hand clutched a bulge in his pocket. Would it work? How couldit?
They were beyond the door now and racing across the great expanse of thefloor, past the central tower, past the control-panel which he had firstseen....
And as if by magic there leaped into Phobar's mind a clear-cut, vividpicture of violet oceans of energy crackling and streaking from theheavens to crash through the laboratory roof and barely miss strikinghis captor behind. Even as Phobar created the image of that terrificdeath, his captor whirled around in a lightning movement, a long arm ofmetal flicking outward at the same instant to drop Phobar to the ground.
Like a flash Phobar was on his feet; his hand whipped from his pocket,and with all his strength he flung a gleaming object straight toward thefifth lever on the control-panel a dozen yards away. As a clumsy arrowwould, his oversize bunch of keys twisted to their mark, clanked, andspread against the fifth control, which was the size regulator.
As rapidly as Phobar's captor had spun around, it reversed again, havingguessed the trick. A tentacle of pliant metal snaked toward Phobar likea streak of flame.
But in those few seconds a terrific holocaust had taken place. AsPhobar's keys spattered against the fifth lever, there came animmediate, growing, strange, high whine, and a sickening collapse ofthe very surface beneath them. Everywhere outlines of objects wavered,changed melted, shrank with a steady and nauseatingly swift motion. Theroof of the laboratory high overhead plunged downward; the far-distantwalls swept inward, contracted. And the metal monsters themselvesdwindled as though they were vast rubber figures from which the air washissing.
* * * * *
Phobar sprang back as the tentacle whipped after him. Only that jump andthe suddenly dwarfing dimensions of the giant saved him. And even inthat instant of wild action, Phobar shouted aloud--for this whole worldwas collapsing, together with everything on it, except he himself whocame of a different universe and remained unaffected! It was the longshot he had gambled on, the one chance he had to strike a blow.
All over the shrinking laboratory the monsters were rushing toward him.His dwindling captor flung another tentacle toward the control-panel toreplace the size-regulating lever. But Phobar had anticipated thatpossibility and had already leaped to the switchboard, sweeping a heavybar from its place and crashing it down on the lever so that it couldnot be replaced without being repaired. Almost in the same move he hadbounded away again, the former hundred-foot giant now scarcely more thanhis own height. But throughout the laboratory, the other metal thingshad halted in their tasks and were racing onward.
Phobar always remembered that battle in the laboratory as a scene fromsome horrible nightmare. The catastrophe came so rapidly that he couldhardly follow the whirlwind events. The half dozen great leaps he madefrom the lashing tentacles of his pursuer sufficed to give him a fewseconds' respite, and then the weird, howling sound of the torturedworld swelled to a piercing wail. His lungs were laboring from theviolence of his exertions; again and again he barely escaped from thecurling whips of metal tentacles. And now the monster was hardly a foothigh; the huge condensers and tubes and colossal machinery were likethose of a pygmy laboratory. And overhead the roof plunged everdownward.
But Phobar was cornered at last. He stood in the center of a circle ofthe foot-high things. His captor suddenly shot forth a dozen rope-likearms toward him as the others closed in. He had not even a weapon, forhe had dropped the bar in his first mad bound away from thecontrol-panel. He saw himself trapped in his own trick, for in minutesat most the laboratory would be crushing him with fearful force.
* * * * *
Blindly Phobar reverted to a primitive defense in this moment ofinfinite danger and kicked with all his strength at the squat monsterbefore him. The thing tried to whirl aside, but Phobar's shoe squashedthickly through, and in a disorder of quivering pieces the metalcreature fell, and subsided. Knowing at last that the invaders werevulnerable and how they could be killed, Phobar went leaping andstamping on those nearest him. Under foot, they disintegrated intolittle pulpy lumps of inert metal.
In a trice he broke beyond the circle and darted to the control-panel.One quick glance showed him that the roof was now scarcely a half dozenyards above. With fingers that fumbled in haste at tiny levers anddials, he spun several of them--the repulsion-ray full--theattraction-ray full. And when they were set, he picked up the bar hehad dropped and smashed the controls so that they were helplesslyjammed. He could almost feel the planet catapult through the heavens.
The laboratory roof was only a foot over his head. He whirled around,squashed a dozen tiny creeping things, leaped to a disk that was now notmore than a few inches broad. Stooping low, balancing himselfprecariously, he somehow managed to close the tiny switch. A haze oforange light enveloped him, there came a great vertigo and dizziness andpain, he felt himself falling through bottomless spaces....
* * * * *
So exhausted that he could scarcely move, Phobar blinked his eyes opento brilliant daylight in the chill of a November Indian summer noon. Thesun shone radiant in the heavens; off in the distance he heard apandemonium of bells and whistles. Wearily he noticed that there were noflame-paths in the sky.
Staggering weakly, he made his way to the observatory, mounted the stepswith tired limbs, and wobbled to the eyepiec
e of his telescope which hehad left focused on the dark star two hours before. Almost trembling, hepeered through it.
The dark star was gone. Somewhere far out in the abysses of theuniverse, a runaway world plunged headlong at ever-mounting speed touncharted regions under its double acceleration of attraction andrepulsion.
A sigh of contentment came from his lips as he sank into a heavy andprofound sleep. Later he would learn of the readjustments in the solarsystem, and of the colder climate that came to Earth, and of the vastchanges permanently made by the invading planet, and of a blazing newstar discovered in Orion that might signify the birth of a sun or thedeath of a metallic dark world.
But these were events to be, and he demanded his immediate reward of aday's dreamless slumber.
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from _Astounding Stories_ September 1932. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling