"A living city of them! A living nest of them; a prodigious living nest of metal!""A nest?" I caught the word.What did it suggest? That was it--the nest of the army ants, the city of the army ants, that Beebe had studied in the South American jungles and once described to me.After all, was this more wonderful, more unbelievable than that--the city of ants which was formed by their living bodies precisely as this was of the bodies of the Cubes?
How had Beebe* phrased it--"the home, the nest, the hearth, the nursery, the bridal suite, the kitchen, the bed and board of the army ants." Built of and occupied by those blind and dead and savage little insects which by the guidance of smell alone carried on the most intricate operations, the most complex activities.Nothing here was stranger than that, I reflected--if once one could rid the mind of the paralyzing influence of the shapes of the Metal Things.Whence came the stimuli that moved THEM, the stimuli to which THEY reacted?
* William Beebe, Atlantic Monthly, October, 1919.
Well then--whence and how came the orders to which the ANTS responded; that bade them open THIS corridor in their nest, close THAT, form this chamber, fill that one?
Was one more mysterious than the other?
Breaking into my current of thoughts came consciousness that I was moving with increased speed; that my body was fast growing lighter.
Simultaneously with this recognition I felt myself lifted from the floor of the corridor and levitated with considerable rapidity forward; looking down I saw that floor several feet below me.Drake's arm wound itself around my shoulder.
"Closing up behind us," he muttered."They're putting us--out."It was, indeed, as though the passageway had wearied of our deliberate progress.Had decided to--give us a lift.
Rearward it was shutting.I noted with interest how accurately this motion kept pace with our own speed, and how fluidly the walls seemed to run together.
Our movement became accelerated.It was as though we floated buoyantly, weightless, upon some swift stream.
The sensation was curiously pleasant, languorous--what was that word Ruth had used?--ELEMENTAL--and free.The supporting force seemed to flow equally from walls and floor; to reach down to us from the roof.It was slumberously even, and effortless.I saw that in advance of us the living corridor was opening even as behind us it was closing.
All around us the little eye points twinkled and--laughed.
There was no danger here--there could be none.Deeper and deeper dropped my mind into the depths of that alien tranquillity.Faster and faster we floated--onward.
Abruptly, ahead of us shone a blaze of daylight.We passed into it.The force holding us withdrew its grip; Ifelt solidity beneath my feet; stood and leaned back against a smooth wall.
The corridor had ended and--had shut us out from itself.
"Bounced!" exclaimed Drake.
And incongruous, flippant, colloquial as was that word, I know none that would better describe my own feelings.
We were BOUNCED out upon a turret jutting from the barrier.
And before us lay spread the most amazing, the most extraordinary fantastic scene upon which, I think, the vision of man has rested since the advent of time.
