The Pygmy Planet, Page 3

dropped to the crystal disk upon which the red ray fell fromthe huge, glowing tube above. It stood there, motionless except forthe swift increase of its size.

  Larry gazed at it, lost in fear and wonder. It was like nothing he hadever seen. What was it that Agnes had said, of machine-monsters, ofhuman brains in mechanical bodies? His brain reeled. He strained hiseyes to distinguish the monstrosity more clearly. It was veiled incrimson flame; he could not see it distinctly.

  But suddenly, when it was as tall as himself, it sprang out into theroom, toward Larry and the shuddering girl. Just off the crystal disk,beyond the scarlet pillar of fire, it paused for long seconds, seemingto regard them with malevolent eyes.

  For the first time, Larry could see it plainly.

  Its body, or its central part, was a tube of transparent crystal; anupright cylinder, rounded at upper and lower ends. It was nearly afoot in diameter, and four feet long. It seemed filled with aluminous, purple liquid.

  About the cylinder were three bands of greenish, glistening metal.Attached to the lower band were four jointed legs of the same brightgreen metal, upon which the strange thing stood.

  Set in the middle band were two glittering, polished lenses, whichseemed to serve as eyes, and Larry felt that they were gazing at himwith malevolent menace. Behind the eyes, two wings sprang from thegreen band. Ingenious, folding wings, of thin plates and bars of greenmetal.

  And from the upper band sprang four slender, glistening, whip-liketentacles, metallic and brilliantly green, two yards in length. Theywrithed with strange life!

  * * * * *

  It seemed a long time to Larry that the thing stood, motionless,seeming to stare evilly at them with eye-like lenses. Then, lurchingforward a little, it moved toward them upon legs of green metal. Andnow Larry saw another amazing thing about it.

  Floating in the brilliant violet liquid that filled the crystal tubewas a gray mass, wrinkled and corrugated. This was divided by deepclefts into right and left hemispheres, which, in turn were separatedinto larger upper and smaller lower segments. White filaments ranthrough the violet liquid from its base toward the three rings orbands of green metal that encircled the cylinder.

  In an instant, Larry realized that the gray mass was a human brain.The larger, upper part the cerebrum, the smaller mass at the back thecerebellum. And the white filaments were nerves, by means of whichthis brain controlled its astounding, mechanical body!

  A brain in a machine!

  The violet liquid, it came to Larry in his trance of wonder, must takethe place of blood, feeding the brain-cells, absorbing waste.

  An eternal mind, within a machine! Free from the ills and weaknessesof the body. And devoid, too, of any pity, of any tender feelings. Acold and selfish mind, without emotion--unless it might worship itselfor its mechanical body.

  It was this monster that had spilt the pool of blood drying on thefloor, near the door. And it was these glistening, green, snake-liketentacles that had crumpled the revolver into a broken mass of steel!

  Abruptly the machine-monster darted forward, running swiftly upon itsfour legs of green metal. Slender tentacles reached out toward theshuddering girl at Larry's shoulder.

  "Run!" Agnes gasped to him, quickly. "It will kill you!"

  The girl tried to push him back.

  As she touched him, Larry recovered from his daze of wondering fear.Agnes was in frightful danger, and facing it with quiet courage. Hemust find a weapon!

  * * * * *

  Wildly, he looked about him. His eyes fell upon the tall, heavy woodenstool, upon which Agnes had been sitting.

  "Get back!" he shouted to her.

  He snatched up the stool, and, swinging it over his head, sprangtoward the machine of violet-filled crystal and glittering greenmetal.

  "Stop!" Agnes screamed, in a terrified voice. "You can't--"

  She had run before him. He seized her arm and swung her back behindhim. Then he advanced warily toward the machine-monster, which hadpaused and seemed to be regarding him with sinister intentness,through its glistening crystal eye-lenses.

  With all his strength, Larry struck at the crystal cylinder, swingingthe stool like an ax. A slender, metallic green tentacle whipped out,tore the stool from his hands, and sent it crashing across the room,to splinter into fragments on the opposite wall.

  Larry, sent off his balance, staggered toward the glittering machine.As he stumbled against the transparent tube that contained the brain,he clenched his fist to strike futilely at it.

  A snake-like metal tentacle wrapped itself about him; he was hurled tothe floor, to sprawl grotesquely among broken apparatus.

  His head came against the leg of a bench. For a few moments he wasdazed. But it seemed only a few seconds to him before he had staggeredto his feet, rubbing his bruised head. Anxiously, he peered about theroom.

  The machine-monster and Agnes were gone!

  He stumbled back to the mass of apparatus in the center of the hugelaboratory. Intently, he gazed into the upright pillar of crimsonflame. Nothing was visible there.

  "No, the other!" he gasped. "The violet is the way they went."

  * * * * *

  He turned to the companion ray of violet radiance that beat straightdown on the opposite side of the tiny, whirling planet. And in thatmotionless torrent of chill violet flame he saw them.

  Tiny, already, and swiftly dwindling!

  With green wings outspread, the machine-monster was beating swiftlyupward through the pillar of purple-blue flame. And close against thecrystal tube that contained its brain, was Agnes, held fast by thewhip-like tentacles of glistening green metal.

  Larry moved to spring after them, into the torrent of violet light.But sudden caution restrained him.

  "I'd shrink, too!" he muttered. "And then where would I be? I'd bestanding on the glass platform, I guess. And the thing flying off overmy head!"

  He gazed at the rapidly dwindling forms of Agnes Sterling and heramazing abductor. As it grew smaller, the machine-monster flew higherin the violet beam, until it was opposite the tiny, spinning planet.

  The distance between the red and the violet rays was just slightlymore than the diameter of the pygmy world. The sphere hung betweenthem, one side of it a fraction of an inch from the red, the other asnear the violet.

  Opposite the elfin planet, the monster ceased to climb. It hung therein the violet ray, an inch from the surface of the little world.

  And still it swiftly dwindled. It was no larger than a fly, and Larrycould barely distinguish the form of the girl, helpless in the greententacles.

  Soon she and the monster became a mere greenish speck.... Suddenlythey were gone.

  * * * * *

  For a little time he stood watching the point where they had vanished,watching the red and the violet rays that poured straight down uponthe crystal disks, watching the tiny, green-blue planet spinning sosteadily between the bright rays.

  Abruptly, he recovered from his fascination of wonder.

  "What did she say?" he muttered. "Something about the monsterscarrying off people to sacrifice to a rusty machine that they worshipas a god! It took her--for that!"

  He clenched his fists; his lips became a straight line ofdetermination.

  "Then I guess we try a voyage in the little plane. A slim chance,maybe. But decidedly better than none!"

  He returned to the table, dropped on his knees, inspected the tinyairplane. A perfect miniature, delicately beautiful; its slim, smallwings were bright as silver foil. Carefully, he opened the door andpeered into the diminutive cabin. Two minute rifles, severalLilliputian pistols, and boxes of ammunition to match, lay on the rearseat of the plane.

  "So we are prepared for war," he remarked, grinning in satisfaction."And the next trick, I suppose, is to get shrunk to fit the plane.About three inches, she said. Lord, it's a queer thing to thinkabout!"

  He got to his feet, wa
lked back to the machine in the center of theroom, with its twin pillars of red and violet flame, and the tinyworld floating between them. He started to step into the violet ray,then hesitated, shivering involuntarily, like a swimmer about to diveinto icy cold water.

  Turning back to one of the benches, he picked up a wooden funnel-rack,and tossed it to the crystal disk beneath the violet ray. Slowly itdecreased in size, until it had vanished from sight.

  "Safe, I suppose," he muttered. "But how do I know when I'm smallenough?"

  * * * * *

  After a moment he picked up a glass bottle which measured about threeinches in height, set it on the floor, beside the crystal disk.

  "I dive out when I get to be the size of the bottle," he murmured.

  With that, he leaped into the violet beam.

  He felt no unusual sensation, except one of pleasant, tingling warmth,as if the direct rays of the sun were bearing down upon him. For amoment he feared that his size was not being affected. Then