Completely circular, cloaked in gloom, its walls were divided into tiny cubicles, each separated from the other by a flimsy partition some four feet high.

Every cubicle held a luxurious, silk-draped divan, and in the wall at the head of the divans, a curious tangle of mechanism was visible. These were the san-ray projectors* which poured their thin yellow light over the limp forms lying on the divans.

(San-Ray Projector from 'Hell Ship of Space')

Ranson glanced about the big room. Men and women lay upon their divans, some sighing ecstatically under the nerve-tingling ray, some lost in queer disordered dreams; and some in the last stage, that of the deep sleep of nervous exhaustion.

(* The san-ray was the discovery of Dr. Samuel Andrew Nolly, who used his initials as a name for it. Stimulating to the sensitory nerves of the human system, it produced a delightfully caressing sensation that was at once as exhilarating as a cold shower and as soothing as a massage.
Under its rays' thought was impossible, only sensation remained, along with queer opiumlike dreams which clouded the brain until the user at length fell into a sleep of nervous exhaustion. At first hailed as a great nerve stimulator, the true effects of the san-ray soon became apparent.
To begin with, it was as habit-forming as a narcotic; the nerves, let down after the strange tingling vibration, cried for the ray's soothing titillation. After a time, the lips and nails took on a yellow hue, and the overstimulated nerves of the body began to break down under the forced activation.
When completely broken down, there were two outcomes for the san-ray addict—complete paralysis, with the overstimulated nerves refusing to convey further feeling; or, worse still, madness. Small wonder the san-ray had been forbidden, outlawed, banished to this hell-ship which lay beyond all law.—Ed.)