The Devolutionist and the EmancipatrixFlint, Homer Eon
Science
The Devolutionist and the Emancipatrix
Flint, Homer Eon
Life on other planets -- Fiction; Science fiction
Van Emmon looked closer. At the bottom of this bulge was a queer
fringe of the same kind of grass that showed on top of it. Van Emmon
looked from one to the other, and all of a sudden the thing dawned
upon him.
This stupendous affair was no mountainside; it was neither more nor
less than the head of a colossal statue! A mammoth edition of the
Goddess of Liberty; and the aircraft had presumed to alight upon its
cheek!
The machine clung there, motionless, for some time, quite as though
the airman knew that Van Emmon would like to look a long while. He
gazed from side to side as far as he could see, making out a small
section of the nose, also the huge curves of a dust-covered ear. It
was wonderfully life-like.
Next second came the earthquake. The whole statue rocked and swayed;
Van Emmon looked to see the machine thrown off. From the base of the
monument came a single terrific sound, a veritable roar, as though
the thing was being wrenched from the heart of the earth. From
somewhere on top came a spurt of water that splashed just beside the
craft.
Then came the most terrible thing. Without the slightest warning the
statue's great eye opened! Opened wide, revealing a prodigious pupil
which simply blazed with wrath!
The statue was alive!
Next second the Sanusian shot into the air. A moment and Van Emmon
was able to look again, and as it happened, the craft was now
circling the amazing thing it had just quit, so that the geologist
could truthfully say that he was dead sure of what he saw.
He was justified in wanting to be absolutely sure. Resting on the
solid earth was a human head, about fifty yards wide and
proportionately as tall. It was alive; but IT WAS ONLY THE HEAD,
NOTHING MORE.
V
THE SUPER-RACE
It will be remembered that Billie wanted to get in touch with a
creature having the characteristic which she had said she admired:
supremacy--"A worker who is the boss!" Bearing this in mind, her
experience will explain itself, dumfounding though it was.
Her first sight of the Sanusian world was from the front of a large
building. The former architect was not able to inspect it minutely;
but she afterwards said that it impressed her as being entirely
plain, and almost a perfect cube. Its walls were white and quite
without ornament; there was only one entrance, an extremely low and
broad, flat archway, extending across one whole side. The structure
was about a hundred yards each way. In front was a terrace,
seemingly paved with enormous slabs of stone; it covered a good many
acres.
Presumably Billie's agent had just brought her machine from the
building, for, within a few seconds, she took flight in the same
abrupt fashion which had so badly upset Smith and Van Emmon. When
Billie was able to look closely, she found herself gazing down upon
a Sanusian city.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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