September 24, 2025 • 26 mins
Dive into the thrilling adventures of Astounding Stories 19, featuring an array of captivating tales that will ignite your imagination! In The Doom from Planet 4 by Jack Williamson, a mysterious ray of fire guides Dan on his ship to an island fraught with otherworldly danger. H.G. Winters The Hands of Aten takes you on a journey as Craig unearths three long-frozen Egyptians from solid ice, leading him into an astonishing escapade. Experience the gripping fate of young Stoddard in H. Thompson Richs The Diamond Thunderbolt, where being locked in a rocket propels him into the vastness of space. A.R. Holmess The Slave Ship from Space explores the chilling reality of three kidnapped Earthlings who reveal to Xantra of the Tillas just how docile Earth slaves can be. In The Revolt of the Machines, Nat Schachner and Arthur L. Zagat delve into the sinister motivations of a master machine as it rebels against its human creators. Finally, in Ray Cummingss The Exile of Time, follow Tugh, the cripple who evades fate until the world teeters on the brink of destruction. Plus, dont miss The Readers Corner, a gathering space for fans of Astounding Stories!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section sixteen of Astounding Stories nineteenth July nineteen thirty one.
This is a liberty Fox recording. All libery Fox recording
or in the public domain. For more information of the volunteer,
please visit Liberfox dot org. Astounding Stories nineteenth July nineteen
thirty one. The Revolt of the Machines by Nashausener and
(00:23):
Arthur else Got, Part three. I knowdded assent, though about
seemed startled many time had castained and eye speculated on
the danger of an avalanche at this point, and wondered
why the station had been built in such an expost place. Once. Indeed,
we had ventured to suggest to the Arista Council the
advisibility of removing the central control to some other point,
(00:44):
but the cold silence that greeted our dividends advice deterred
us from further pursuit of the subject. Now you know,
as well as I Casson resumed that a glacier is
merely a huge river of ice and those solid protects
of sum of qualities of really flowing waters. As a
matter of facts, glaciers do flow because the tremendous pressure
(01:06):
at the bottom lowers the melting point of eyes to
such a degree that the eyes actually liquifies and flows along.
I followed him eagerly in these elementary statements, trying to
glimse what he was driving at. But Abbut's brood feathers
were fixed in the blank stare. This glacier does move.
We've measured a matter of an inch or two a day. If, however,
(01:30):
Cassin's voice took on a deeper note, we can manage
to hasten that process. The glacier will overwhelm the countryside.
He paused, and that gave me a chance to interpose
some objection. But hold a moment. In the first place,
it is an absolute impossibility, with the means at our command,
or even with every appliance, to melt the face of
(01:53):
the whole northern Glacier. In the second place, even if
we could, the whole world would be overwhelmed. And then
where would we be keas and look at me, at
trible scornfully, who said we were going to melt the
entire glacier. Remember, I spoke only of the place of
the overhang. Set that in motion, and we don't have
(02:15):
to worry about the problem any further. Why not, I inquired, incredulously.
Suppose you do wipe out all the machines in this
particular vicinity, won't there be tremendous numbers left all through
the equatorial belt? Of course, he explained patiently. And what
(02:36):
if they are? What are all these machines but inantimate mechanism,
things of metal and rubber and quartz. What makes them
the monster they have become? I smote my forehead in anger.
What a fool, now I see it. It's the master
machines you are after exactly, he smilingly agreed. Overwhelmed, destroy
(03:03):
this devilous creature of mind with its unhuman intelligence, and
the machines are what they were before, merely obedient slaves.
I pondered that a moment. And how may I are
you going to force this old glascier to move his
face clothed? That's the trouble up on the ice. I
(03:25):
was working on that problem and had managed to cretly
to rig up a contrivance that would have done the trick.
But we can't go back for it. That why is blocked,
he mused halfo himself. If only we could lay our
hands on a solar disintegrating machine, that difficulty would be
solved at the name and Woot's face had been studying
blanking comprehension lit up solar disintegrating machine. He inquired why
(03:51):
there's one station of more than a few hundred yards
away from here? This area to our ex was my sector,
you know, of course, of course, shouted Kassen. I quite
forgotten the very thing. You're not half bad, Abbut if
you'd only stop trying to rely on brute strength instead
of brains, he concluded, abbut said nothing. But I noticed
(04:13):
a quick flash of hatred that passed in an instant,
leaving a blank continence. I thought to myself, you'll be watching,
my fine fellow. I don't trust you at all. Kasson
was speaking. We'll have to wait until nightfall. The master
machines won't expect us downe at the base, so I'm
positive the search ray one before kiss along the ground.
(04:37):
We'll snake to the machine's mass advisor and radio unit
so it won't give the alarm, and hold it back.
Then I'll show you what next to be done. Night
came at last, leading food it though we were burning
with impassions. Very softly we crawled out of the cave.
Three shadows Unfortunately there was no moon. The great glascier
(04:58):
loomed ominously above dimly white hight overhead, howevered the green
signal lights of the machine's planes. Their search ray foccured
in blinding glares on the rim of the opera eyes.
It did not take us long to find the dark
bulk of the instigrator. It was a squat cylinder for
all the world, like a huge boiler. At one end
(05:19):
there upended a periscope arrangement which burned out to a funnel.
In the funnel was a very powerful lens cut to
special measurements. The light of the sun, or any lights
for that mother, was concentrated through the lens onto a
series of photo electric cells composed of an alloy of
selenium and the far more delicate element alenium. A high
(05:41):
tension current was there created of such powerful intensity that
it disintegrated the atoms of every element except osmium and
indium into their constituent electrons. Consequently, the interior, as well
as the long slit nozzle or fires at the other end,
were made of these resison metals. Through a special process,
(06:03):
the tremendously powerful current was forced through the white and
gold nozzle in the spreading tin plate gray that sheared
through earth and rock and metals as if they were butter.
Such was the machines we were after. It was but
the work of a few seconds mass the delicate television
and sunoboxes placed on the top of every machine. Now
(06:27):
we were sure no warning could be given the Master
machines as it sat in its metallic cunning at the
control board, ceaselessly receiving its messages from the area apparatus
focused above it. Quietly, very quietly, we trundled the precious
instruments along on its wheelbase. The green lights the sky
(06:47):
above the search ray were firmly set on the rim.
At last, without any untoward alarm, we reached the welcome
shelter of the base, but not as I had expected
to our tunnel. On the contrary, Caston, who had directed
the party, had led us almost a quarter mile away.
(07:08):
I look up again and understood the great overhang of
the glacier was directly above us. Without a word, with
hardly a sound, we trundled the instigrator into natural niche.
We found in the icy surface it was almost completely hidden.
Only the bunnel with its lands protruded into the open.
(07:28):
The Nozulorovice was pointing directly at the interior of the
ice pack. Now everything is said properly, Caston remarked with
satisfaction as he's ran out from adjusting the various control
of the machine. When the first ray of the morning
sun strike the lens, the instigrator will start working. It
will share through a layer of eyes over alreadius of
(07:50):
at least a mile dead huge crevasse, coupled with the
trafic heat and the pressure from the mountain of ice
above will start the whole glacier, or I'll be very
much mistaken. Come let us get back to our shelter.
Before the alarm is given. As he started to move,
a dark bolt loom ominously in front of us. Abbot.
(08:14):
His voice was harsh forbidding. Do you mean to say
nothing further is to be done here? That the instigrator
will work without any attention? This is just what I said,
Casin replied, somewhat surprised. Step aside, Abbot and let us go.
It is dangerous to remain here. But Abbot made no
(08:35):
move to comply. Instead, he thrust back his great shaggy
hat and give in to resounding love, My fine friends.
So you were the brainy one eye and abbut the
obedient do it again, how nicely you've been fooled. I
waited until you accommodatingly evolved the plan to reconquer the
(08:58):
world and put it into the effect. Now that you've
done so, I've never earned it for you. The voice
that heavily tried to be mocking, no, snarked you poor fools.
Don't you know that with you out of the way,
I abbut will be the lord of the world. Those
prolots up there no better than to disobey me. Do
(09:21):
you mean you intend to kill us? Cassan asked incredulously.
So you've actually grabbed the idea, was the sarcastic retort. Meanwhile,
I was gradually aging to decide, my hand reaching for
the bone knife in my bosom. Abbot saw my movement.
(09:42):
No you don't, he roared, and sprang for me his long,
gleaming knife uplift. I talked desperately at my weapons, but
it was entangled in the great first in the moment
he was on top of me. Involuntarily, I raised my
arm toward of the tread and blow raising my spear
in my heart. The point fell, but Kasan struck at
(10:04):
the savage arm with all his might, deflecting the blade
just in time. It seared my shoulder like a red
hot iron. And in the next instance, all three of
us were rolling, kicking, snarling trio of animals. We fought
desperately in the dark. There were no rules of the game, biting, kicking,
everything went Kasson and I, wakened as we were from
(10:27):
long starvation and the biting cold, were no match for
our powerful, huge muscle opponent, well clad and will nourished
as he was, though we fought with the strength of despair.
A violent blow from his huge fist knocked Casten out
of the fight. Hairy fingers grabbed my throat. I'll break
your neck for you, he snarled, and his hands tightened.
(10:52):
I struggled weakly, but I was helpless. I could just
see his hateful face grinning, and my controtion. I was
passing out, slowly, horribly. Casan was still motionless. Colored lights
dawn before my eyes, little spots that flowered and died
out in cressing blackness. Then the whole words leaped into
(11:12):
flaming white, so that my eyeballs heard in the dim
resists of my pain swept mind. I thought that strangulation
must and like this the brightness held dazzlingly. But suddenly
a fierce pain swept into my consciousness, the pain of
gosping breath, forcing air through torted glud into suffocating lungs.
(11:35):
I struggled up into the fierce illumination. From a sitting position,
I saw Abbot, now clearly visible as in midday, crunning
his head way back. I looked to and, in spite
of my stabbing gos for air, jumped to my feet.
The shirt stray from the scout plants were focused directly
(11:55):
on us. I knew what that meant. The side of
us was even the being cast upon the two or
X visor screens in the central control station. The devilous
master machine was even the many pullotting the proper buttons.
We had not second to loose. My strangled throat hurt horribly,
(12:16):
but I might not to horse, yell, run, and I
tottered to where caston yet lay bath in the deathly illumination, unmoving.
There was a snore of animal fear from Abbott, and
he started to run wildly, with never a backward glance
at us, even in my own fear, expecting each instant
(12:38):
the crash of TERMINI about me. I managed to heard
a last world at the feeling's figure. Coward that real
with my feelings considerably. I tottered over and talked at Castan.
He was limb. I look up. Hundreds of plants were
comforting overhead. The night was a cris cross of stabbing
(13:00):
search rays. I left my friend and slung him across
my shoulder. Every exertion, every move was accompanied but excruciating agony.
But I persevered. Abbot was already headway to the tunnel,
running like math. Then what I had dreaded happened. There
came a souze through the night, a dull thud, a
(13:22):
blinding flask, and a roar that paled the surgery into insignificance.
The first termnight bomb had been dropped. For a moment,
the landscape was filled with flying rocks and huge chunks
of ice. When the great clothes of violently upthrown earth
had settled, there was no sign of Abbot. He had
been directly in the path of the explosion, Staggering under
(13:47):
my load. I headed as close to the ice pack
as I could. There was no safety out in the
opened I grown heavily past the disintegrator, whose very existent
I had forgotten. In the crest of a sizling hum,
a thin eddy of steam halted me in my tracks.
I stared. The machines was working, even as I watched
(14:09):
a great which was momentarily being driven further and further
into the eyes a great fan shaped wage clothes of
steam blowed up, growing thicker and heavier. A rushing stream
of unleased water was slapping at my feet. I was bewildered, frankly,
so what had started the disintegrade of the in the
(14:30):
dead of night? Of course? I shouted exultantly to the
limb body on my shoulder for a search. Ray was
fixed steadily on the funnel. There it was from that
blinding light the machines was getting the energy it needed,
if only the visor did not disclose that little bit
of metal to the unwinking monster machines. I looked again
(14:54):
and took herd. It was almost undistinguishable against the dazzling
blur of ice and the fierce white light. If those
rays held, the solvation of the world was a sure.
There was only way to do it, I strung at
my own thoughts, Yet there was no alternative. It must
be done. I was hidden from the rays under a
(15:15):
projection of ice termini. Bombs were dropping methodically over a
rapidly devastated sector with methodically regularity. Sooner or later the
master machine would feel that we were exterminated and the
search rays switched off. That would mean that the disintegrator
would cease working and the whole plan fall through. In
(15:37):
the morning light, the sector signaling's apparatus at the first
sign of renewed activity would give warning, and the unhuman
thing of metal at the controls would discover and wreak
our lost hope. No, I must walk boldly into the
bombed area and discover myself as alive in the visor
of the planes, and make them continue to bomb and
(15:58):
throw their search ray on the scarred plane. That meant
the disintegrator would receive the vital light. But how but caston.
I couldn't leave him there on the ground motionless while
I deserted him, nor could I take him with me.
I was prepared to take my chance with almost certain death,
but I could not travel with his life. So I
(16:20):
was in an agony of indecision. Just then the form
of my aching souldier steered side, struggled a bit, and
suddenly slid down to a standing position. Cassan swayed unsteadily
a moment straightened, looked about him in amazement. What's happening here?
He demanded, why you, old war horse? I shuddered my relief.
(16:45):
I thought you were out of the pictures completely, not me,
he answered indignantly. I'm all right, but you haven't answered
my question. A termin night bomb exploded not so far
away from where we stood. I dug involuntarily, caston doing Likewise,
there's the answer, I grinned, and a rather neit one too,
(17:08):
But I'll explain in a few words. I sketch what
had happened and show him the the instigrator spreading its
deadly wave of destruction. By now there was a torrent
enveloping us up to our knees. We would have to
move soon or be drowned in the slowly rushing water. Then, hesitatingly,
(17:28):
I told him of my cheam to keep the searchery
in action. His lean face sobered, but he nodded his
head bravely. Of course, that is the only way to
keep them at it. You and I will start at
once in separate directions, so that if they get one,
the other will continue to draw the search ray down
(17:48):
on the plane and into the disintegrator. Not you caston,
I dissented in alarm. Your life is too followable. Your
brain and skin will be needed to remodel the world
and make it habitable for the few proleected or left
after the missiones or wipe out. You are just as
(18:09):
valuable a man as I am, he laed affectionately. No,
my mind is made up. We chanced these together, and
to all my plantings. He was obduraded, insisting that we
each take an equal risk. I gave in at last,
with the lethal choke in my throat. We shook hand
(18:30):
with a steady grip and walk out into a glare
of lights on differgent paths. Would I ever see my
friends again? There was a pause of seconds as I
walk on and on came then an earth shattering crasts
that flung me to the ground. The visors had caught
the pictures of me. I picked myself up, bruised and sore,
(18:50):
but otherwise unharmed. I start to run. The sky was
a blessed of zooming plants, that world destruction on the
land below far off could be here, the rumbling roar
of of horrying musines, tractors, diggers, disintegratuous levers, of the
mighty mobile messes of the metal that men's brain had conceived,
all hurrying forward in the mass attack to seek out
(19:11):
and destroy their creators, obedient to the will of a
master machines immobile purssing buttons in the central control system.
Did night resolve itself into a weird, pantasmagoric nightmare for me,
a gigantic game of height and seek, in which I
was it God's being, chalking flong to earth and stunned
by ears, sattering explosion, staggering up somehow dugging to avoid
(19:36):
being crossed beneath the ponderous threats of Metal's monster that
plung uncannonly for me, so being loaded in terror, swerving
just in time from in front of a swinging crane,
instinctively side stepping just as a pale violet race swept
into nothingness. All before it. I must have been delirious,
for I retain only the veguous memory of the horror,
(19:58):
and all of the time the goud in surgery bios
down upon the torn and satterate fields, and the disintegrator
a notice in the fast approach deadly kept up its
deadly work. At last, in my delirium and terror, I
heard a great running and tearing. I look up, and
a tractor just missed me as it rolled by unswissing threads.
(20:19):
But that one glance was enough. The ice cap was moving,
flowing forward a thousand foot all of eyes, great billowing
clods of steam sports from innumerable cracks. The deed had
been done. The world was saved for mankind. Summoning the
last ounce of strengths, I set off on a steady
(20:41):
run for a cellar of the rock cave to be
out of the way. When the finals mass up came,
I was not pursued. The ponderous machines, thousand of them,
were hastily forming into solid ranks directly in front of
the tottering glacier wall. The master machines had seen in
depending fate in the advisor and was organizing a devense.
(21:03):
Even in my elation, I could not but feel unwoiling
admiration for this monstrous thing of mental and quartz imbued
with an intelligence they could think more coolely and quickly
than most humans. Yet I did not stop running until
I reached the cave. My heart gave a great bone
for there, peering anxiously with orange face into the groaning dawn,
(21:25):
stood the figure of Castan, my friend, whom I had
never expected to see alive again. Maren, He shouted, Is
it you or your ghost? That very question I was
about to ask you. I parried, But look, old friend,
see what your genius had complied, and it is now destroying.
(21:48):
The mountain of ice was flowing forward, gathering speed on
the sway, and an invisible signal of the mass machines,
thousands on thousands of them started into action, like shocked through.
In a last desperate assault, They ground forward a sereed
line that exactly paralleled the threatened break, and one hundred
teep these old earth of us had never witnessed so
(22:11):
all inspiring a side. They smashed into that moving wall
of eyes with the force of uncounted millions of tons.
We could hear the groaning and strain of furiously turning
machinery as they heaved. Casson and I looked at each
other in amazement. The master machine was trying to hold
back the mighty glacier by the sheer power of its culhorts.
(22:35):
A wild light sprang into cast and eyes of admiration
of regret. What a thing is this that I created?
He muttered, If only I truly believed that. For a
moment he half desired to see his brainchild triumph. The
air was hideous, with a dozand noises. The glacier wall
(22:55):
was cracking and splitting with the noise of thunderclaps. The
machines were weird ring and banging and crashing. It was
a gallant effort, but the towering eyes Wall was not
to be denied. Forward ever, forward it moved, pushing inassoriedly
the struggling machine before it, piling them up high upon
one another, grinding into powder to the front ranks, and
(23:19):
to keep it all. The huge overhang a thousand feet
high was swaying crazily and describing even greater arms. Look,
I screamed, and flung up my arm. Great freight planes
were flying wing to wing, head on for the tottering crack,
deliberately smashing into the topmost point, trying to knock it
(23:41):
back into equilibrium. Said Casin's eyes ablaze, dancing about insandily,
But the last suicidal puss did not avail. With screams
as of a thouzand devils and the deafening rending rose.
The whole side of the glaciers seemed to lean over
and fall in the great earth shattering crescent of noise,
(24:03):
while we watched fascinids rode to the ground. The thozand
feet of glittering Wall described a tremendous orc swinging with
increasing momentum, down down, down to the earth. It had
so long been separated from. The clamoring machines were buried
under lost in a swirl of rice and snow. Only
(24:25):
the central station remained a few moments, divines under the
swift un rush of its unflaing foo with a crest
that could have been heard around the world. The upper
must crack struck the station. The giant glacier wall was
down the earth. The sky, the universe was filled with ice, broken, shattered, torn,
(24:46):
splintered of vaporize. The ground beneath our feet heaved and
tumbled in violent quake. We were thrown heavily, and I
know no more. I altered out of consciousness. Kasen was
keaving my hand and rubbing my forehead with eyes. He
smiled wondly to find me still alive, weak and battered.
(25:09):
I struggled to my feet. Before me was a wilderness
of ice, a new mountain, range of gigantic tumbled blocks
of dazzling purity, of the velied machines of the Central
Control Station. There was not a sign they were buried
forever under hundreds of feet of frozen water. I turned
to Casin and shook his hand. You've won, You've saved
(25:33):
the world. Now let's get the product and start to rebuild.
There was no tresce of exultation in Casson's voice. Instead,
he ununconstably sighed as we trot up a narrow, winding
path to the top. Yes, he said half to himself,
I've done it. But but what I asked curiously, that beautiful,
(25:59):
wonderful machines I created? He burst forth in sudden passience
to think that it should lie down there, destroyed twisted
mass of scrub metals and broken glass. And of Chapter
sixteen
Section sixteen of Astounding Stories nineteenth July nineteen thirty one.
This is a liberty Fox recording. All libery Fox recording
or in the public domain. For more information of the volunteer,
please visit Liberfox dot org. Astounding Stories nineteenth July nineteen
thirty one. The Revolt of the Machines by Nashausener and
(00:23):
Arthur else Got, Part three. I knowdded assent, though about
seemed startled many time had castained and eye speculated on
the danger of an avalanche at this point, and wondered
why the station had been built in such an expost place. Once. Indeed,
we had ventured to suggest to the Arista Council the
advisibility of removing the central control to some other point,
(00:44):
but the cold silence that greeted our dividends advice deterred
us from further pursuit of the subject. Now you know,
as well as I Casson resumed that a glacier is
merely a huge river of ice and those solid protects
of sum of qualities of really flowing waters. As a
matter of facts, glaciers do flow because the tremendous pressure
(01:06):
at the bottom lowers the melting point of eyes to
such a degree that the eyes actually liquifies and flows along.
I followed him eagerly in these elementary statements, trying to
glimse what he was driving at. But Abbut's brood feathers
were fixed in the blank stare. This glacier does move.
We've measured a matter of an inch or two a day. If, however,
(01:30):
Cassin's voice took on a deeper note, we can manage
to hasten that process. The glacier will overwhelm the countryside.
He paused, and that gave me a chance to interpose
some objection. But hold a moment. In the first place,
it is an absolute impossibility, with the means at our command,
or even with every appliance, to melt the face of
(01:53):
the whole northern Glacier. In the second place, even if
we could, the whole world would be overwhelmed. And then
where would we be keas and look at me, at
trible scornfully, who said we were going to melt the
entire glacier. Remember, I spoke only of the place of
the overhang. Set that in motion, and we don't have
(02:15):
to worry about the problem any further. Why not, I inquired, incredulously.
Suppose you do wipe out all the machines in this
particular vicinity, won't there be tremendous numbers left all through
the equatorial belt? Of course, he explained patiently. And what
(02:36):
if they are? What are all these machines but inantimate mechanism,
things of metal and rubber and quartz. What makes them
the monster they have become? I smote my forehead in anger.
What a fool, now I see it. It's the master
machines you are after exactly, he smilingly agreed. Overwhelmed, destroy
(03:03):
this devilous creature of mind with its unhuman intelligence, and
the machines are what they were before, merely obedient slaves.
I pondered that a moment. And how may I are
you going to force this old glascier to move his
face clothed? That's the trouble up on the ice. I
(03:25):
was working on that problem and had managed to cretly
to rig up a contrivance that would have done the trick.
But we can't go back for it. That why is blocked,
he mused halfo himself. If only we could lay our
hands on a solar disintegrating machine, that difficulty would be
solved at the name and Woot's face had been studying
blanking comprehension lit up solar disintegrating machine. He inquired why
(03:51):
there's one station of more than a few hundred yards
away from here? This area to our ex was my sector,
you know, of course, of course, shouted Kassen. I quite
forgotten the very thing. You're not half bad, Abbut if
you'd only stop trying to rely on brute strength instead
of brains, he concluded, abbut said nothing. But I noticed
(04:13):
a quick flash of hatred that passed in an instant,
leaving a blank continence. I thought to myself, you'll be watching,
my fine fellow. I don't trust you at all. Kasson
was speaking. We'll have to wait until nightfall. The master
machines won't expect us downe at the base, so I'm
positive the search ray one before kiss along the ground.
(04:37):
We'll snake to the machine's mass advisor and radio unit
so it won't give the alarm, and hold it back.
Then I'll show you what next to be done. Night
came at last, leading food it though we were burning
with impassions. Very softly we crawled out of the cave.
Three shadows Unfortunately there was no moon. The great glascier
(04:58):
loomed ominously above dimly white hight overhead, howevered the green
signal lights of the machine's planes. Their search ray foccured
in blinding glares on the rim of the opera eyes.
It did not take us long to find the dark
bulk of the instigrator. It was a squat cylinder for
all the world, like a huge boiler. At one end
(05:19):
there upended a periscope arrangement which burned out to a funnel.
In the funnel was a very powerful lens cut to
special measurements. The light of the sun, or any lights
for that mother, was concentrated through the lens onto a
series of photo electric cells composed of an alloy of
selenium and the far more delicate element alenium. A high
(05:41):
tension current was there created of such powerful intensity that
it disintegrated the atoms of every element except osmium and
indium into their constituent electrons. Consequently, the interior, as well
as the long slit nozzle or fires at the other end,
were made of these resison metals. Through a special process,
(06:03):
the tremendously powerful current was forced through the white and
gold nozzle in the spreading tin plate gray that sheared
through earth and rock and metals as if they were butter.
Such was the machines we were after. It was but
the work of a few seconds mass the delicate television
and sunoboxes placed on the top of every machine. Now
(06:27):
we were sure no warning could be given the Master
machines as it sat in its metallic cunning at the
control board, ceaselessly receiving its messages from the area apparatus
focused above it. Quietly, very quietly, we trundled the precious
instruments along on its wheelbase. The green lights the sky
(06:47):
above the search ray were firmly set on the rim.
At last, without any untoward alarm, we reached the welcome
shelter of the base, but not as I had expected
to our tunnel. On the contrary, Caston, who had directed
the party, had led us almost a quarter mile away.
(07:08):
I look up again and understood the great overhang of
the glacier was directly above us. Without a word, with
hardly a sound, we trundled the instigrator into natural niche.
We found in the icy surface it was almost completely hidden.
Only the bunnel with its lands protruded into the open.
(07:28):
The Nozulorovice was pointing directly at the interior of the
ice pack. Now everything is said properly, Caston remarked with
satisfaction as he's ran out from adjusting the various control
of the machine. When the first ray of the morning
sun strike the lens, the instigrator will start working. It
will share through a layer of eyes over alreadius of
(07:50):
at least a mile dead huge crevasse, coupled with the
trafic heat and the pressure from the mountain of ice
above will start the whole glacier, or I'll be very
much mistaken. Come let us get back to our shelter.
Before the alarm is given. As he started to move,
a dark bolt loom ominously in front of us. Abbot.
(08:14):
His voice was harsh forbidding. Do you mean to say
nothing further is to be done here? That the instigrator
will work without any attention? This is just what I said,
Casin replied, somewhat surprised. Step aside, Abbot and let us go.
It is dangerous to remain here. But Abbot made no
(08:35):
move to comply. Instead, he thrust back his great shaggy
hat and give in to resounding love, My fine friends.
So you were the brainy one eye and abbut the
obedient do it again, how nicely you've been fooled. I
waited until you accommodatingly evolved the plan to reconquer the
(08:58):
world and put it into the effect. Now that you've
done so, I've never earned it for you. The voice
that heavily tried to be mocking, no, snarked you poor fools.
Don't you know that with you out of the way,
I abbut will be the lord of the world. Those
prolots up there no better than to disobey me. Do
(09:21):
you mean you intend to kill us? Cassan asked incredulously.
So you've actually grabbed the idea, was the sarcastic retort. Meanwhile,
I was gradually aging to decide, my hand reaching for
the bone knife in my bosom. Abbot saw my movement.
(09:42):
No you don't, he roared, and sprang for me his long,
gleaming knife uplift. I talked desperately at my weapons, but
it was entangled in the great first in the moment
he was on top of me. Involuntarily, I raised my
arm toward of the tread and blow raising my spear
in my heart. The point fell, but Kasan struck at
(10:04):
the savage arm with all his might, deflecting the blade
just in time. It seared my shoulder like a red
hot iron. And in the next instance, all three of
us were rolling, kicking, snarling trio of animals. We fought
desperately in the dark. There were no rules of the game, biting, kicking,
everything went Kasson and I, wakened as we were from
(10:27):
long starvation and the biting cold, were no match for
our powerful, huge muscle opponent, well clad and will nourished
as he was, though we fought with the strength of despair.
A violent blow from his huge fist knocked Casten out
of the fight. Hairy fingers grabbed my throat. I'll break
your neck for you, he snarled, and his hands tightened.
(10:52):
I struggled weakly, but I was helpless. I could just
see his hateful face grinning, and my controtion. I was
passing out, slowly, horribly. Casan was still motionless. Colored lights
dawn before my eyes, little spots that flowered and died
out in cressing blackness. Then the whole words leaped into
(11:12):
flaming white, so that my eyeballs heard in the dim
resists of my pain swept mind. I thought that strangulation
must and like this the brightness held dazzlingly. But suddenly
a fierce pain swept into my consciousness, the pain of
gosping breath, forcing air through torted glud into suffocating lungs.
(11:35):
I struggled up into the fierce illumination. From a sitting position,
I saw Abbot, now clearly visible as in midday, crunning
his head way back. I looked to and, in spite
of my stabbing gos for air, jumped to my feet.
The shirt stray from the scout plants were focused directly
(11:55):
on us. I knew what that meant. The side of
us was even the being cast upon the two or
X visor screens in the central control station. The devilous
master machine was even the many pullotting the proper buttons.
We had not second to loose. My strangled throat hurt horribly,
(12:16):
but I might not to horse, yell, run, and I
tottered to where caston yet lay bath in the deathly illumination, unmoving.
There was a snore of animal fear from Abbott, and
he started to run wildly, with never a backward glance
at us, even in my own fear, expecting each instant
(12:38):
the crash of TERMINI about me. I managed to heard
a last world at the feeling's figure. Coward that real
with my feelings considerably. I tottered over and talked at Castan.
He was limb. I look up. Hundreds of plants were
comforting overhead. The night was a cris cross of stabbing
(13:00):
search rays. I left my friend and slung him across
my shoulder. Every exertion, every move was accompanied but excruciating agony.
But I persevered. Abbot was already headway to the tunnel,
running like math. Then what I had dreaded happened. There
came a souze through the night, a dull thud, a
(13:22):
blinding flask, and a roar that paled the surgery into insignificance.
The first termnight bomb had been dropped. For a moment,
the landscape was filled with flying rocks and huge chunks
of ice. When the great clothes of violently upthrown earth
had settled, there was no sign of Abbot. He had
been directly in the path of the explosion, Staggering under
(13:47):
my load. I headed as close to the ice pack
as I could. There was no safety out in the
opened I grown heavily past the disintegrator, whose very existent
I had forgotten. In the crest of a sizling hum,
a thin eddy of steam halted me in my tracks.
I stared. The machines was working, even as I watched
(14:09):
a great which was momentarily being driven further and further
into the eyes a great fan shaped wage clothes of
steam blowed up, growing thicker and heavier. A rushing stream
of unleased water was slapping at my feet. I was bewildered, frankly,
so what had started the disintegrade of the in the
(14:30):
dead of night? Of course? I shouted exultantly to the
limb body on my shoulder for a search. Ray was
fixed steadily on the funnel. There it was from that
blinding light the machines was getting the energy it needed,
if only the visor did not disclose that little bit
of metal to the unwinking monster machines. I looked again
(14:54):
and took herd. It was almost undistinguishable against the dazzling
blur of ice and the fierce white light. If those
rays held, the solvation of the world was a sure.
There was only way to do it, I strung at
my own thoughts, Yet there was no alternative. It must
be done. I was hidden from the rays under a
(15:15):
projection of ice termini. Bombs were dropping methodically over a
rapidly devastated sector with methodically regularity. Sooner or later the
master machine would feel that we were exterminated and the
search rays switched off. That would mean that the disintegrator
would cease working and the whole plan fall through. In
(15:37):
the morning light, the sector signaling's apparatus at the first
sign of renewed activity would give warning, and the unhuman
thing of metal at the controls would discover and wreak
our lost hope. No, I must walk boldly into the
bombed area and discover myself as alive in the visor
of the planes, and make them continue to bomb and
(15:58):
throw their search ray on the scarred plane. That meant
the disintegrator would receive the vital light. But how but caston.
I couldn't leave him there on the ground motionless while
I deserted him, nor could I take him with me.
I was prepared to take my chance with almost certain death,
but I could not travel with his life. So I
(16:20):
was in an agony of indecision. Just then the form
of my aching souldier steered side, struggled a bit, and
suddenly slid down to a standing position. Cassan swayed unsteadily
a moment straightened, looked about him in amazement. What's happening here?
He demanded, why you, old war horse? I shuddered my relief.
(16:45):
I thought you were out of the pictures completely, not me,
he answered indignantly. I'm all right, but you haven't answered
my question. A termin night bomb exploded not so far
away from where we stood. I dug involuntarily, caston doing Likewise,
there's the answer, I grinned, and a rather neit one too,
(17:08):
But I'll explain in a few words. I sketch what
had happened and show him the the instigrator spreading its
deadly wave of destruction. By now there was a torrent
enveloping us up to our knees. We would have to
move soon or be drowned in the slowly rushing water. Then, hesitatingly,
(17:28):
I told him of my cheam to keep the searchery
in action. His lean face sobered, but he nodded his
head bravely. Of course, that is the only way to
keep them at it. You and I will start at
once in separate directions, so that if they get one,
the other will continue to draw the search ray down
(17:48):
on the plane and into the disintegrator. Not you caston,
I dissented in alarm. Your life is too followable. Your
brain and skin will be needed to remodel the world
and make it habitable for the few proleected or left
after the missiones or wipe out. You are just as
(18:09):
valuable a man as I am, he laed affectionately. No,
my mind is made up. We chanced these together, and
to all my plantings. He was obduraded, insisting that we
each take an equal risk. I gave in at last,
with the lethal choke in my throat. We shook hand
(18:30):
with a steady grip and walk out into a glare
of lights on differgent paths. Would I ever see my
friends again? There was a pause of seconds as I
walk on and on came then an earth shattering crasts
that flung me to the ground. The visors had caught
the pictures of me. I picked myself up, bruised and sore,
(18:50):
but otherwise unharmed. I start to run. The sky was
a blessed of zooming plants, that world destruction on the
land below far off could be here, the rumbling roar
of of horrying musines, tractors, diggers, disintegratuous levers, of the
mighty mobile messes of the metal that men's brain had conceived,
all hurrying forward in the mass attack to seek out
(19:11):
and destroy their creators, obedient to the will of a
master machines immobile purssing buttons in the central control system.
Did night resolve itself into a weird, pantasmagoric nightmare for me,
a gigantic game of height and seek, in which I
was it God's being, chalking flong to earth and stunned
by ears, sattering explosion, staggering up somehow dugging to avoid
(19:36):
being crossed beneath the ponderous threats of Metal's monster that
plung uncannonly for me, so being loaded in terror, swerving
just in time from in front of a swinging crane,
instinctively side stepping just as a pale violet race swept
into nothingness. All before it. I must have been delirious,
for I retain only the veguous memory of the horror,
(19:58):
and all of the time the goud in surgery bios
down upon the torn and satterate fields, and the disintegrator
a notice in the fast approach deadly kept up its
deadly work. At last, in my delirium and terror, I
heard a great running and tearing. I look up, and
a tractor just missed me as it rolled by unswissing threads.
(20:19):
But that one glance was enough. The ice cap was moving,
flowing forward a thousand foot all of eyes, great billowing
clods of steam sports from innumerable cracks. The deed had
been done. The world was saved for mankind. Summoning the
last ounce of strengths, I set off on a steady
(20:41):
run for a cellar of the rock cave to be
out of the way. When the finals mass up came,
I was not pursued. The ponderous machines, thousand of them,
were hastily forming into solid ranks directly in front of
the tottering glacier wall. The master machines had seen in
depending fate in the advisor and was organizing a devense.
(21:03):
Even in my elation, I could not but feel unwoiling
admiration for this monstrous thing of mental and quartz imbued
with an intelligence they could think more coolely and quickly
than most humans. Yet I did not stop running until
I reached the cave. My heart gave a great bone
for there, peering anxiously with orange face into the groaning dawn,
(21:25):
stood the figure of Castan, my friend, whom I had
never expected to see alive again. Maren, He shouted, Is
it you or your ghost? That very question I was
about to ask you. I parried, But look, old friend,
see what your genius had complied, and it is now destroying.
(21:48):
The mountain of ice was flowing forward, gathering speed on
the sway, and an invisible signal of the mass machines,
thousands on thousands of them started into action, like shocked through.
In a last desperate assault, They ground forward a sereed
line that exactly paralleled the threatened break, and one hundred
teep these old earth of us had never witnessed so
(22:11):
all inspiring a side. They smashed into that moving wall
of eyes with the force of uncounted millions of tons.
We could hear the groaning and strain of furiously turning
machinery as they heaved. Casson and I looked at each
other in amazement. The master machine was trying to hold
back the mighty glacier by the sheer power of its culhorts.
(22:35):
A wild light sprang into cast and eyes of admiration
of regret. What a thing is this that I created?
He muttered, If only I truly believed that. For a
moment he half desired to see his brainchild triumph. The
air was hideous, with a dozand noises. The glacier wall
(22:55):
was cracking and splitting with the noise of thunderclaps. The
machines were weird ring and banging and crashing. It was
a gallant effort, but the towering eyes Wall was not
to be denied. Forward ever, forward it moved, pushing inassoriedly
the struggling machine before it, piling them up high upon
one another, grinding into powder to the front ranks, and
(23:19):
to keep it all. The huge overhang a thousand feet
high was swaying crazily and describing even greater arms. Look,
I screamed, and flung up my arm. Great freight planes
were flying wing to wing, head on for the tottering crack,
deliberately smashing into the topmost point, trying to knock it
(23:41):
back into equilibrium. Said Casin's eyes ablaze, dancing about insandily,
But the last suicidal puss did not avail. With screams
as of a thouzand devils and the deafening rending rose.
The whole side of the glaciers seemed to lean over
and fall in the great earth shattering crescent of noise,
(24:03):
while we watched fascinids rode to the ground. The thozand
feet of glittering Wall described a tremendous orc swinging with
increasing momentum, down down, down to the earth. It had
so long been separated from. The clamoring machines were buried
under lost in a swirl of rice and snow. Only
(24:25):
the central station remained a few moments, divines under the
swift un rush of its unflaing foo with a crest
that could have been heard around the world. The upper
must crack struck the station. The giant glacier wall was
down the earth. The sky, the universe was filled with ice, broken, shattered, torn,
(24:46):
splintered of vaporize. The ground beneath our feet heaved and
tumbled in violent quake. We were thrown heavily, and I
know no more. I altered out of consciousness. Kasen was
keaving my hand and rubbing my forehead with eyes. He
smiled wondly to find me still alive, weak and battered.
(25:09):
I struggled to my feet. Before me was a wilderness
of ice, a new mountain, range of gigantic tumbled blocks
of dazzling purity, of the velied machines of the Central
Control Station. There was not a sign they were buried
forever under hundreds of feet of frozen water. I turned
to Casin and shook his hand. You've won, You've saved
(25:33):
the world. Now let's get the product and start to rebuild.
There was no tresce of exultation in Casson's voice. Instead,
he ununconstably sighed as we trot up a narrow, winding
path to the top. Yes, he said half to himself,
I've done it. But but what I asked curiously, that beautiful,
(25:59):
wonderful machines I created? He burst forth in sudden passience
to think that it should lie down there, destroyed twisted
mass of scrub metals and broken glass. And of Chapter
sixteen
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