He was awakened somewhat later by
what seemed an Earth-shaking cataclysm...
Out in front there had been a lake,
frozen to a depth of many feet. It
no longer existed. In its place was a
huge, unbelievable mass—an ellipsoid
of metal, tremendous, impossible, filling
the whole of the basin with its bulk, hissing, glowing with the impact of steaming ice and water on fire-hot flanks.

(Frozen lake destroyed! 'The Return of the Murians' by Nat Schachner)
Even as Mark stared in stunned bewilderment, little sections in the sides
opened silently, and dark, ungainly monsters rose straight up into the steamy exhalations, hovered in the air as if trying
to get their bearings.
Mark shrank back instinctively, with
the caution of a wild animal in the presence of the unknown; but it was too
late. The aerial monsters had evidently
seen him. Simultaneously, they darted
down for him, with a swoosh of complaining atmosphere, caught him even as
he tried to race back through the door
he had just quitted.
Struggling, twisting vainly, he found
himself lifted high into the frosty night,
like a young lamb in the talons of an
eagle. Consciousness left him-
WHEN HE CAME TO, it was to a
queer nightmare sense of a long sleep
in which his brain had been prodded
and probed, in which impalpable energies
had flowed unceasingly to grant him an
awareness, a knowledge that had not
been his before his capture. He struggled to his feet, dazed, bewildered. No
one held him; his limbs were free and
unfettered.
He seemed to be within an enormous
arch of metal, a great flat dome that
stretched interminably for tremendous
distances. Everywhere was color and
movement and ordered activity; machines that were totally incomprehensible; strange, growing things; an apparatus somewhat like a helmet attached
by wires to a screen from which even
now sound and symbols were slowly
fading. It seemed to him, dimly, that
the helmet had been clamped to his own
aching head, that currents had flowed
into his mind while he had slept. It
was a world within a world, a tiny cosmos inclosed in the orbit of this monstrous structure.
She was
obviously a girl, slender, yet subtly
rounded. Her face was a perfect oval,
the golden orange of her skin a miracle
of tinting. She was indescribably beautiful, exotic.
“It is time that you awakened,” said
the bearded figure. “There is so much
we must know from you, and quickly.”
Mark started. Somehow he understood the liquid syllables, yet the language was not of Earth. He prided
himself on his knowledge of the polyglot
speech of mankind.
The young girl smiled. “You learned
our tongue while you were asleep, oh
man of this strange planet.” She indicated the helmet with a nod of hqr head.
“It is the method we employ to teach
our children. A succession of images
and speech impinges on the receptive
centers of the brain. It saves much time
and trouble.” |