A Voice from the Inner World by A Read online

  extended. Round or ovoid spots seemed

  again opened them I reeled to the rail with a

  placed in definite order about it, and from the

  cry of terror. Poised above the ship’s masts,

  extremities of its axes lines or cables, clearly

  and so enormous that it appeared to shut out

  outlined by the glare, extended downward to

  Amazing Stories

  6

  the red spheres above the ship. By now, I was

  comprehension. Calmly, now that I felt

  so firmly convinced that I was irrational, that

  assured that I was rational and was the victim

  these new and absolutely stunning discoveries

  of my fellow men—fiendish as they might

  did not excite or surprise me in the least, and

  be—I walked aft to where one red sphere

  as if in a particularly vivid dream, I lay there

  hung a few yards above the ship’s deck.

  gazing upward, and dully, half consciously

  speculating on what it all meant. Gradually,

  “THERE seemed no visible connection

  too, it dawned upon me that the huge sphere

  between it and the vessel, but I noticed that

  with its encircling band of duller light was

  everything movable upon the deck, the iron

  rotating. The circular markings, which I cable, the wire ropes, the coiled steel lines of thought were marvelously like the ports of a

  the after derrick, all extended upward from the

  ship, were certainly moving from top to deck, as rigid as bars of metal, while crackling bottom of the sphere, and I could distinctly

  blue sparks like electrical discharges

  hear a low, vibrant humming.

  scintillated from the ship’s metal work below

  “The next second I jerked upright with

  the red sphere. Evidently, I decided, the red

  a start and my scalp tingled. Reason had mass was actuated by some form of electrical suddenly returned to me. The thing was no

  energy or magnetism, and I gave the area

  meteor, no celestial body, but some marvelous

  beneath it a wide berth. Retracing my way to

  machine, some devilish invention of man, the bow of the ship, I found similar conditions some gigantic form of airship which—God

  there. As I walked towards the waist of the

  only knew why—had by some incredible ship again I mounted the steps to the bridge, means captured the Chiriqui, had lifted the

  hoping from that height to get a better view of

  twenty thousand ton ship into the air and was

  the monstrous machine holding the Chiriqui

  bearing her off with myself, the only survivor

  captive. I knew that in the chart-house I would

  of all the ship’s company, witnessing the find powerful glasses with which to study the miraculous happening! It was the most insane

  machine. Upon the bridge the bodies of the

  thought that had yet entered my brain, but I

  quartermaster, the first officer and an

  knew now for a certainty that I was perfectly

  apprentice lay sprawled grotesquely, and

  sane, and, oddly enough, now that I was across the chart-house door lay the captain.

  convinced that the catastrophe which had Reaching down I lifted him by the shoulders overtaken the Chiriqui was the devilish work

  to move him to one side, and to my

  of human beings, I was no longer frightened

  amazement I discovered that he was not dead.

  and my former nightmarish terror of things

  His heart beat, his pulse, though slow and

  unknown, gave place to the most intense anger

  faint, was plain, he was breathing and his face,

  and an inexpressible hatred of the fiends who,

  still ruddy, was that of a sleeping man rather

  without warning or reason, had annihilated

  than of a corpse.

  hundreds of men and women by means of this

  “A wild thought rushed through my

  new and irresistible engine of destruction. But

  brain, and hastily I rushed to the other bodies.

  I was helpless. Alone upon the stolen and

  There was no doubt of it. All were alive and

  stricken ship I could do nothing. By what

  merely unconscious. The gas had struck them

  tremendous force the spherical airship was

  down, but had not killed them, and it came to

  moving through space, by what unknown me as a surprise, though I should long before power it was lifting the ship and carrying it—

  have realized it, that the fumes had been

  slung like the gondola of a Zeppelin beneath

  purposely discharged by the beings who had

  the sphere—were matters beyond my captured the vessel. Possibly, I mentally

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  7

  decided, they had made a mistake and had

  like appendages or cilia, and I wondered if the

  failed in their intention to destroy the persons

  enormous spherical machine at which I was

  upon the ship, or again, was it not possible

  gazing, might not move through space in a

  that they had intentionally rendered the ship’s

  similar manner by means of vibrating rods

  company unconscious, and had not intended to

  moving with such incredible speed that,

  destroy their lives? Forgetting1 my original

  slender as they were, they produced enormous

  purpose in visiting the bridge, I worked propulsive power. Also, I could now see that feverishly to resuscitate the captain, but all to

  the two extremities of the sphere, or as I may

  no purpose. Many gases, I knew, would render

  better express it, the axes, were equipped with

  a man unconscious without actually injuring

  projecting bosses or shafts to which the cables

  him, and I was also aware, that when under

  supporting the red spheres were attached. And

  the influence of some of these, the victims

  as I peered through the glasses at the thing, the

  could not be revived until the definite period

  huge green sphere, which had been hitherto

  of the gases’ effect had passed. So, feeling

  traveling on an even keel, or, in other words,

  certain that in due time the captain and the

  with the central band vertical, now shifted its

  others would come to of their own accord, I

  position and one end swung sharply upward,

  entered the chart-room and, securing the throwing the band about the center at an acute skipper’s binoculars, I again stepped upon the

  angle. Involuntarily I grasped the rail of the

  bridge. As I could not conveniently use the

  bridge expecting to be thrown from my feet by

  glasses with my gas-mask in place, and as I

  the abrupt uptilting of the ship. But to my utter

  felt sure there was no longer any danger from

  amazement the Chiriqui remained on an even

  the fumes, I started to remove the apparatus.

  plane and I then saw that as the sphere tilted,

  But no sooner did a breath of the air enter my

  the cable at the uppermost axis ran rapidly out

  mouth than I hastily readjusted the so that the two red spheres, which evidently contrivance, for the gas which had struck supported the captive ship, remained in their down everyone but myself was as strong as

  original relative horizontal position. No sign


  ever. Indeed, the mere whiff of the fumes

  of life was visible upon the machine above

  made my head reel and swim, and I was

  me, and I surmised that whoever might be

  forced to steady myself by grasping the handling the thing was within the sphere.

  bridge-rail until the dizzy spell passed.

  “Wondering how high we had risen

  “Once more myself, I focused the above the sea, I stepped to the starboard end glasses as best I could upon the whirling of the bridge and glanced down, and an sphere above the ship. But I could make out

  involuntary exclamation escaped my lips. Far

  little more than by my naked eyes. The band

  beneath the ship and clearly visible through

  about the center or equator of the globular

  the captain’s glasses was land! I could

  thing was, I could now see, divided into distinguish the white line marking surf segments, each of which bore a round, slightly

  breaking on a rocky shore, and ahead I could

  convex, eye-like object from the centers of

  make out the cloud-topped, serried summits of

  which extended slender rods which vibrated

  a mighty range of mountains. Not until then

  with incalculable speed. Indeed, the whole

  did I realize the terrific speed at which the

  affair reminded me of the glass models of

  machine and captive vessel were traveling. I

  protozoans which I had seen in the American

  had been subconsciously aware that a gale had

  Museum of Natural History. These minute been blowing, but I had not stopped to realize marine organisms I knew, moved with great

  that this was no ordinary wind, but was the

  rapidity by means of vibrating, hair-

  rush of air caused by the rapidity of motion.

  Amazing Stories

  8

  But as I peered at the mountains through the

  as if in a heavy sea; I clung desperately to the

  binoculars, and saw the distant surface of the

  bridge-rail for support and I felt sure that the

  earth whizzing backward far beneath the ship had been dropped into the abysmal crater, Chiriqui’s keel, I knew that we were hurtling that the next instant the vessel would crash

  onward with the speed of the fastest scout

  into fragments as it struck bottom, or worse,

  airplane.

  that it would sink into the molten incandescent

  “Even as I gazed, the mountains lava which might fill the depths of the seemed to rush towards me until, in a few

  volcano. For what seemed hours, the awful

  minutes after I had first seen them, they fall continued, though like as not the terrible appeared almost directly under the ship. Then

  suspense lasted for only a few minutes, and

  the gigantic machine above me suddenly then, without warning, so abruptly that I lost altered its course, it veered sharply to one side

  my balance and was flung to the bridge, the

  and swept along the range of summits far

  ship ceased falling, an indescribable blue light

  beneath. For some reason, just why I cannot

  succeeded the blackness, and unable to believe

  explain, I dashed to the binnacle and saw that

  my senses I found the ship floating

  we were traveling to the south, and it flashed

  motionless, still suspended from the giant

  across my mind, that I had a dim recollection

  mechanism overhead, above a marvelous

  of noticing, when I first realized the nature of

  landscape.

  the machine which had been mistaken for a

  meteor, that by the stars, we were moving

  “ON every hand, as far as I could see,

  eastward. In that case, my suddenly alert mind

  stretched jagged rocks, immense cliffs,

  told me, the land below must be some portion

  stupendous crags and rugged knife-ridged hills

  of America, and if so, judging by the altitude

  of the most dazzling reds, yellows and

  of the mountains, that they must be the Andes.

  purples. Mile-deep cañons cut the forbidding

  All of this rushed through my brain instantly,

  plains, which here and there showed patches

  and in the brief lapse of time in which I sprang

  of dull green, and in one spot I saw a stream

  to the binnacle and back to my observation

  of emerald-hued water pouring in a foaming

  point at the bridge-rail.

  “Now, I saw, we

  cataract into a fathomless rift in the rock. But I

  were rapidly descending, and focusing my gave little attention to these sights at the time.

  glasses upon the mountains, I made out an

  My gaze was riveted upon a strange, weird

  immense conical peak in the top of which was

  city which capped the cliffs close to the

  a gigantic black opening. Without doubt it was

  waterfall, and almost directly beneath the

  the crater of some stupendous extinct volcano,

  Chiriqui. Slowly we were dropping towards it,

  and, with a shock, I realized that the machine

  and I could see that the buildings which at first

  and the ship were headed directly for the sight had appeared of immense height and yawning opening in the crater. The next tower-like form, were in reality gigantic instant we were dropping with lightning speed

  basaltic columns capped with superimposed

  towards it, and so terrified and dumfounded

  edifices of gleaming yellow.

  had I become that I could not move from

  “The next second the glasses dropped

  where I stood. Even before I could grasp the

  from my shaking, nerveless hands. Gathered

  fact, the Chiriqui was enclosed by towering,

  on an open space of greenish plain were

  rocky walls, inky blackness surrounded me,

  hundreds of human beings! But were they

  there was an upward breath-taking rush of air,

  human? In form and features, as nearly as I

  a roar as of a thousand hurricanes. The could judge at that distance, they were human, Chiriqui rocked and pitched beneath my feet,

  but in color they were scarlet, and

  A Voice from the Inner World

  9

  surmounting the head and extending along the

  the women leaped to the Chiriqui’s anchor,

  arms to the elbows on every individual was a

  with a second bound she was on the fore deck,

  whitish, membraneous frill, which at first and close at her heels came a score of others.

  sight reminded me of an Indian’s war bonnet.

  Standing upon the deck with her head fringed

  The beings appeared to be of average height,

  by its erect vibrating membrane level with the

  but as the Chiriqui’s keel touched solid boat-deck, she gazed about for an instant.

  ground and, keeling to one side, she rested

  Then, catching sight of the form of a sailor

  upon one of her bilges, I saw with a shock,

  sprawled upon the deck, she uttered a shrill,

  that the scarlet creatures were of gigantic size,

  piercing cry, leaped forward, and, before my

  fully thirty feet in height, and that, without

  unbelieving, horror-stricken eyes, tore the still

  exception, all were females! All were stark

  living, palpitating body to pieces and

  naked; but despite the frills upon their heads

  ra
venously devoured it.

  and shoulders despite their bizarre scarlet

  “Unable to stir through the very

  skins, despite their gigantic proportions, they

  repulsiveness of the scene, realizing that my

  were unquestionably human beings, women

  turn might be next, I gazed fascinated. But the

  without doubt, and of the most perfect giant cannibal female was not to feast in proportions, the most graceful forms and the

  peace. As her companions reached the deck,

  most regular and even handsome features. they rushed upon her and fought viciously for Beside the stranded ship, they loomed as a portion of the reeking flesh. The struggle of giants; but against the stupendous proportions

  these awful giants, as smeared with human

  of their land and city, they appeared no larger

  blood, scratching and clawing, uttering shrill

  than ordinary mortals. By now they were cries of rage, they rolled and fought on the streaming from their houses and even in the

  deck, was indescribably terrible and

  surprise and excitement of that moment I disgusting. But it came to an abrupt end. With noticed that the giant rocky columns were

  a bound, a giantess of giantesses, a

  perforated by windows and doors, and had

  powerfully-muscled female, appeared, and

  obviously been hollowed out to form like cowed beasts, the others drew aside, dwellings. Meantime, too, the huge machine

  licking their chops, the membranes on their

  which had captured the Chiriqui, had heads rising and falling in excitement, like the descended and was lying at rest, and no longer

  frills on an iguana lizard, and watching the

  emitting its green light, upon a cradle erected

  newly-arrived giantess with furtive eyes.

  near the waterfall, and from openings in its

  Evidently she was the leader or chieftainess,

  central band several of the scarlet, giant and in curt but strangely shrill and, of course, Amazons were emerging. How long, I to me, utterly unintelligible words, she gave wondered, would I remain undiscovered? orders to the others. Instantly, the horde of How long would it be before one of the female

  women began swarming over the ship,

  giants spied me? And then, what would be my

  searching every nook and corner, and,

  fate? Why had they captured the ship? Where