Page:Amazing Stories Volume 17 Number 06.djvu/104

104 bodies had a greenish cast. If the Earth had been back in its own orbit, these unnatural appearances would have been unnerving. But mankind had already gone through the crisis of facing ultimate destruction, and had been left stunned, fatigued. Like one who has gone through a thousand deaths and still finds himself alive. Mankind was slowly rallying.

"We're seeing them at least," was about all the astronomers could say. "We knew there were few tracks along our trail through the universe. Here then are the creatures they have clambered through the planets, dragging us away."

The astronomers were baffled by the base upon which the Earth had come to rest. They could not determine whether it was a dead star or some new type of heavenly body. Through their telescopes it appeared to be flat rather than round—a floor that stretched endlessly until its smooth surface was lost in the purple haze of distance.

Three great towers had been built upon this floor to form a sort of tripod. Upon these three towers the Earth's surrounding shell had been placed.

Oddly enough, the gravitational forces were too slight to draw the Earth down to the bottom of the shell. Instead, it remained centered. Its own gravity had undergone very little change. The pull of the moon and the sun upon the tides was missing. The effect of such bodies upon the weight of all things on the Earth had been lost.

The cushioning effect of the air had played its part in more ways than one. The friction had slowed the Earth down. After those terrible times when the Earth and its shell made contact, the speed of rotation had gradually diminished.

Now the Earth hovered like something lifeless within its glass prison. Its people would look out upon the moving shadows and call them "green moons." Already man was nerving himself to explore the unknown.

Among the green moons and green Milky Ways—the heads and bodies of those great creatures outside the shell—something else was distinguished. At first it was called "the black moon." Telescopes revealed that it was an instrument whose cannon-like projection was pointing at the face of the Earth.

The green creatures could be seen manipulating this dark instrument so that its shadowy barrel aimed first at one continent and then at another.

Conventions of space men and astronomers met to consider what might be done. It was taken for granted that a weapon of some sort was being made ready to effect the Earth's complete disintegration. This black moon was nothing more nor less than a gigantic cannon. One blast from it would blow the planet into smithereens.

Pictures of the instrument were assembled from a series of gigantic photographs. Every newspaper carried a series of these, and each day other details became more refined. At last earth men knew the terrifying truth, that the great green two-legged monsters were settling themselves down into the seats on either side of the leviathan cannon. They were operating wheels and levers which turned the instrument and adjusted its length. The great barrel would center upon a single point for a time and follow it with the Earth's gentle turning.

HEN the people of this chosen region were told that they were directly in line with the aim of the instrument, they were losing no time moving themselves from this spot. It was a natural thing to do, though the astronomers chided them for their trouble.