"I wonder if they've perfected this," Irgi mused. "They must be aware
that the brain gives off electrical waves. Perhaps they can chart
those waves on graphs. But do they know that each curve and bend of
those waves represents a picture? I can translate those waves into
pictures--but can they?"
He slouched a little on his tentacles, squatting, gazing at the screen
as he flipped over a lever.
A picture quivered on the screen; grew nebulous, then cleared. Irgi
found himself staring at a city far vaster than Urg. Grim white
towers peaked high into the air, and broad, flat ramps circled them,
interwoven like ribbons in the sunlight. On the tallest and largest
buildings were great fields of metal painted a dull luster, where
queerly wrought flying ships landed and took off.
The scene changed suddenly. He looked into a hospital room and watched
a pretty young woman smiling up at him. She too, had the growth
disease. Now he beheld the mighty salt mines where naked men swung huge
picks at the crusted crystals, sweating and dying under a strange sun.
Even these remnants of humanity festered with the growth.
A tall, lean man in white looked out at him. His lips moved, and Irgi
read their meaning. This man spoke to one named Emerson, commissioning
him with a spaceship, reciting the need of radium, the dread of the
plague. The thoughts of this Emerson were coming in clearer, as Irgi in
sudden interest, flipped over different dials. The unspoken thoughts
pouring into his brain through the screen continued. The words he did
not understand, but the necessity for radium, and the danger of the
growth disease he did. The pictures jumbled, grew chameleonesque--
Irgi stared upward at a colossal figure graven in lucent white marble.
He made out the letters chiseled into the base: GEORGE WASHINGTON. He
wondered idly what this Washington had done, to merit such undying
fame. He must have created a nation, or saved it. He wished there were
Urgians alive to build a statue to _him_.
He rose suddenly, standing upright on his tentacles, swaying gently.
Why, he had the power to make himself immortal! These creatures would
gladly build statues to him! True, he could not create a nation--_but
he could save it_!
Irgi unfastened clamps, and rolled the screen aside. He reached to a
series of black knobs inset in the wall, and turned them carefully.
Turning, he saw the figures of the four men stiffen to rigidity as a
red aura drifted upward from the tabletop, passing through them as if
they were mist, rising upwards to dissipate in the air near the ceiling.
"That will prepare their bodies for the Chamber of the Cones," he said.
"When they realize that I am their friend, they will gladly hear my
counsels!"
Opening the laboratory door, Irgi passed out and closed it behind him.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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