The Emancipatrix | Page 8

boulders.
Within a space of three or four minutes the engineer counted not less
than ten buzzards. The unknown operator of the machine, however,
paid no attention to them, but continued his extraordinary watch of the
heavens. Smith began to wonder if the chap were not seated in an
air-tight, sound-proof chamber, deep in the hull of some great aerial
cruiser, with his eyes glued fast to a periscope. "Maybe a sky patrol,"
thought the man of the earth; "a cop on the lookout for aerial smugglers,
like as not."
And then came another of those terrifying stops. This time, as soon as

he could collect his senses, the engineer saw that the machine had
landed approximately in the middle of the canon, and presumably
among the boulders in its bottom. For all about it were the tops of
gigantic rocks, most of them worn smooth from water action. And, as
soon as the engine stopped, Smith plainly heard the roar of water right
at hand. He could not see it, however. Why in the name of wonder
didn't the fellow look down, for a change?
The craft began to move. This time its motion was smoother arguing an
even surface. However, it had not gone far before, to the engineer's
astonishment, it began to move straight down a slope so steep that no
mechanism with which Smith was familiar could possibly have clung
to it. As this happened, his adopted eyes told him that the craft was
located upon one of those enormous boulders, in the center of a stream
of such absolute immensity that he fairly gasped. The thing
was--colossal!
And yet it was true. The unseen machine deliberately moved along
until it was actually clinging, not to the top, but to the side of the rock.
The water appeared to be about five yards beneath, to the right. To the
left was the sky, while the center of that strange vision was now upon a
similar boulder seemingly a quarter of a mile distant, farther out in the
stream. But the fellow at the periscope didn't change position one whit!
It was so unreal. Smith deliberately ignored everything else and
watched again for indications of eyelids. He saw not one flicker, but
noticed a certain tiny come-and-go, the merest sort of vibration, which
indicated the agent's heart-action. Apparently it beat more than twice as
fast as Smith's.
But it relieved him to know that his agent was at least a genuine living
being. For a moment he had fancied something utterly repellent to him.
Suppose this Sanusian were not any form of natural creature at all, but
some sort of supermachine, capable of functioning like an organism?
The thought made the engineer shudder as no morgue could.
Presently the queer craft approached the water closely enough, and at
such an angle, that Smith looked eagerly for a reflection. However, the

water was exceedingly rough, and only a confused brownish blur could
be made out. Once he caught a queer sound above the noise of the
water; a shrill hiss, with a harsh whine at the end. "Just like some kind
of suction apparatus," as he later described it.
And then, with that peculiar sound fresh in his ears, came the crowning
shock of the whole experience. Floating toward the boulder, but some
distance away, was what looked like a black seed. Next moment the
vision flashed clear, as usual, and the engineer saw that the object was
really a beetle; and in a second it was so near that Smith's own body,
back on the earth, involuntarily shrank back into the recesses of his
chair.
For that beetle was an enormity in the most unlimited sense of the word.
It was infinitely larger than any beetle the engineer had ever seen--
infinitely! It was as large as a good-sized horse!
But before Smith could get over his amazement there was a rush and a
swirl in the water behind the insect. Spray was dashed over the rock, a
huge form showed itself indistinctly beneath the waves, and next
instant the borrowed eyes were showing the engineer, so clearly as to
be undeniable, the most astounding sight he had ever seen.
A fish of mountainous size leaped from the water, snapped the beetle
into its mouth, and disappeared from sight. In a flash it had come and
gone, leaving the engineer fairly gasping and likewise wondering how
he could possibly expect anybody to believe him if he told the bald
truth of what he had seen.
For he simply could not have invented anything half as incredible. The
fish simply could not be described with ordinary language. IT WAS AS
LARGE AS THE LARGEST LOCOMOTIVE.

IV
THE GOLD-MINER

As for Van Emmon, his experience will have to be classed with