Her form was as straight and graceful as had been that of the other, nor
did it give an impression of great size in a room which was proportioned
to it. It was not she that was large, but we that were small. Her body
was slim and perfect in its proportions, and her face was flawless, yet
where the other had given an impression of youth, there was here an
atmosphere of age incalculable. I cannot say from what it came, unless
from one thing only. Her eyes were intolerably tired.
As she entered the room she had an object about the size of a football
perched on her left shoulder. There was a table in the centre, of a
transparent blue substance. It had three legs which joined in a twisted
knot, and then spread out. I noticed that these legs moved so that the
table adjusted itself to her as she approached it, but whether this
movement were sentient or mechanical I could not tell. She extended her
left arm to the surface of the table, and the object on her shoulder
rolled slowly down.
It was of the colour of a boiled lobster, with many bluish-white
appendages hanging from its surface. They were about an inch in length,
and of the shape to a dachshund’s ear. As it rolled forward they spread
out like hands, to balance and control its motion, and when it rested
those that were close to the ground would support it steadily.
It was evidently alive, but it had no other features that I could
observe, and it appeared equally comfortable whatever part of its
surface were uppermost.
The table was relatively higher than those to which we are accustomed,
and there was no chair or other seat in the room.
The Dweller remained standing, as though her attention were fixed upon
the red globule before her. I turned to my companion to convey my
wonder, but she gave me a quick thought that she was trying to follow
what was happening, and did not wish for distraction, so I looked
quietly round the room while I waited.
The wall on the side on which we stood, and those to right and left,
were blank of all but colour, which was blue, of a very
delicately-beautiful tint, which I had not seen previously, evidently
designed to harmonise with the colouring of its occupant.
The farther wall was of the same nature as those we had passed in the
passage, having a living picture within it--if living it could be
called, much was an epitome of desolation.
It showed far more plainly, or at least to a far greater distance, than
did those into which we had looked before. It was a scene of a frozen
river, which itself must have been half-a-mile in width, and of an
endless solitary frozen plain beyond it. The sky was frosty blue and
cloudless. There were no trees,--nothing but the frozen river, and the
frozen snow.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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