The giant shape was a man. He was bending forward over a table—the table was under me. The man’s hunched shoulders and peering face were above me. For an instant my mind failed to grasp it all. I swung the telescope field downward, sidewise, and up again. And then at last I understood. This was a room, with men grouped at this nearer end of it around the table—men of human form, intent faces framed with long, white hair. The undulating surface over which our vehicle was floating, was a slide of what seemed glass, a clear glass slide with a speck of gray rock lying in its center. And the white disk over us in the sky was the lower, small lens of the microscope through which these men were examining us! VI THE NEW REALM Twenty days! So full of strange impressions I scarcely know how to recount them. Yet, after such a trip, they were days of almost normality. Our vehicle beneath that microscope had grown rapidly in size. And with our expanding visual viewpoint, and the nearness of solid, motionless objects, its velocity seemed infinitely small. It barely floated past the microscope, settling to the floor of that huge room; and with a normal proportionate size, the Beta ray shut off, it came to rest. They crowded around us—old men, loosely robed, and with flowing white hair, seamed, sooth, hairless faces, stern, but kindly, and eyes very bright and intelligent. They crowded around us, at first timid, then friendly, talking together excitedly in a strange, liquid tongue. Dr. Weatherby tried to greet them and to shake hands. They understood neither his words, nor the gesture. But in a moment they comprehended. And shook hands, all of them with each of us, very solemnly. The room had oval openings for windows; light was outside but it seemed rather dim. Presently one of the men tried to herd us along the wall of the room. “No!” said Dr. Weatherby. “Don’t go! We must stay in the vehicle!” But when we turned toward it the men resisted us with a sudden stubborn force. “Don’t!” I shouted. “Jim, stop that! We’d better go with them.” The old men seemed to have gone into a sudden panic of violence. They were pushing, shoving us. They obviously had little strength, but the commotion would draw others from outside. We yielded, and they herded us down the long room. A panel slid aside. We crossed a long, narrow viaduct, a metallic bridge with high parapet sides. We seemed to be a hundred feet in the air. I caught a vista of low-roofed buildings: verdure—giant flowers on the roofs, streets down there, and off in the distance a line of hills. The air was soft and pleasant. Overhead was a blue sky, with gay white masses of clouds. There seemed to be no sun. The light was stronger than twilight, but flat, shadowless.