Life on other planets -- Fiction; Psychological fiction; Quests (Expeditions) -- Fiction; Science fiction
When at last he looked, he saw the same sphere as before, but now all
was changed on it. It was a world of rocks, minerals, water, plants,
animals, and men. He saw the whole world at one view, yet everything was
so magnified that he could distinguish the smallest details of life. In
the interior of every individual, of every aggregate of individuals, of
every chemical atom, he clearly perceived the presence of the green
corpuscles. But, according to the degree of dignity of the life form,
they were fragmentary or comparatively large. In the crystal, for
example, the green, imprisoned life was so minute as to be scarcely
visible; in some men it was hardly bigger; but in other men and women it
was twenty or a hundred times greater. But, great or small, it played an
important part in every individual. It appeared as if the whirls of
white light, which were the individuals, and plainly showed themselves
beneath the enveloping bodies, were delighted with existence and wished
only to enjoy it, but the green corpuscles were in a condition of
eternal discontent, yet, blind and not knowing which way to turn for
liberation, kept changing form, as though breaking a new path, by way of
experiment. Whenever the old grotesque became metamorphosed into the new
grotesque, it was in every case the direct work of the green atoms,
trying to escape toward Muspel, but encountering immediate opposition.
These subdivided sparks of living, fiery spirit were hopelessly
imprisoned in a ghastly mush of soft pleasure. They were being
effeminated and corrupted—that is to say, absorbed in the foul, sickly
enveloping forms.
Nightspore felt a sickening shame in his soul as he looked on at that
spectacle. His exaltation had long since vanished. He bit his nails, and
understood why Krag was waiting for him below.
He mounted slowly to the fifth window. The pressure of air against him
was as strong as a full gale, divested of violence and irregularity, so
that he was not for an instant suffered to relax his efforts.
Nevertheless, not a breath stirred.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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