The aged professor was now becoming more astute as to his condition. At
first it was only a mild, passive wonderment at his helplessness and the
strange thoughts which raced through his mind. Now he attempted to
arouse himself from the lethargy.
Quite suddenly his sight cleared, and what a surprise! He could see all
the way around him without moving his head! And he could look at the
ceiling of his room! His room? Was it his room! No-- It just couldn't
be. Where was he? What were those queer machines before him? They moved
on four legs. Six tentacles curled outward from their cubical bodies.
One of the machines stood close before him. A tentacle shot out from the
object and rubbed his head. How strange it felt upon his brow.
Instinctively he obeyed the impulse to shove the contraption of metal
from him with his hands.
His arms did not rise, instead six tentacles projected upward to force
back the machine. Professor Jameson gasped mentally in surprise as he
gazed at the result of his urge to push the strange, unearthly looking
machine-caricature from him. With trepidation he looked down at his own
body to see where the tentacles had come from, and his surprise turned
to sheer fright and amazement. His body was like the moving machine
which stood before him! Where was he? What ever had happened to him so
suddenly? Only a few moments ago he had been in his bed, with the
doctors and his nephew bending over him, expecting him to die. The last
words he had remembered hearing was the cryptic announcement of one of
the doctors.
"He is going now."
But he hadn't died after all, apparently. A horrible thought struck him!
Was this the life after death? Or was it an illusion of the mind? He
became aware that the machine in front of him was attempting to
communicate something to him. How could it, thought the professor, when
he had no mouth. The desire to communicate an idea to him became more
insistent. The suggestion of the machine man's question was in his mind.
Telepathy, thought he.
The creature was asking about the place whence he had come. He didn't
know; his mind was in such a turmoil of thoughts and conflicting ideas.
He allowed himself to be led to a window where the machine with waving
tentacle pointed towards an object outside. It was a queer sensation to
be walking on the four metal legs. He looked from the window and he saw
that which caused him to nearly drop over, so astounded was he.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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