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Walls of Acid · Classic Short Science Fiction Stories

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Speaker 1: Section sixteen of twenty short science fiction stories by various authors.
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Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Walls of
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Speaker 1: Acid by Henry Hasse. Five millenniums have passed since the
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Speaker 1: Loathsome termins were eliminated from the world of discra, But
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Speaker 1: what of the other planets? Brainall stirred, throbbed sluggishly once
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Speaker 1: then lay quiescent as his mental self searched up from
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Speaker 1: the deeps of nonentity, and gradually came to know that
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Speaker 1: some one had entered the room, his room far beneath
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Speaker 1: the city. Now he could feel the vibra currents through
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Speaker 1: the liquids of the huge tanks where he had lain
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Speaker 1: somnolent for untold eons. It was pleasant, caressing. For a
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Speaker 1: moment he floated there, enjoined to the utmost this strange sensation,
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Speaker 1: as the renewed thought life force set his every convolution
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Speaker 1: to paul to be once more aware, o gloriously aware.
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Speaker 1: The thought came fierce and vibrant. Once more, they have
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Speaker 1: awakened me. But how long has it been? Then? Curiously,
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Speaker 1: and what can they want? This time? The huge brain
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Speaker 1: was alert, now with a supernal sense of keening tentatively,
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Speaker 1: he set out a thought potential that encompassed the room.
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Speaker 1: They're afraid, he sensed to have entered here, and they
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Speaker 1: are afraid of me. I shall remedy that. Brain All,
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Speaker 1: Lord is thought potential to one eighth of the magnitude,
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Speaker 1: and felt his mind contact theirs. Approach my children, he said, kindly,
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Speaker 1: you have nothing to fear from me. I take it
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Speaker 1: you are the imperial messenger, sent by her supreme magnificence,
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Speaker 1: the Empress a Lazar. He felt the fright slip from
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Speaker 1: their minds, but they were startled. The Empress Udalla reigns
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Speaker 1: now forth. In the oil line came the thought Empress
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Speaker 1: Salazar died long ago. I am truly grieved. Brain All
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Speaker 1: flashed to them. Alizar, may she rest in peace. Did
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Speaker 1: not neglect me, how well I remember her interest in
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Speaker 1: the stories. I could tell stories of the discre of
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Speaker 1: old when we sent men out to glorious adventures on
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Speaker 1: other planets I five millenniums ago. It was that we
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Speaker 1: achieved space travel in those days. Brain All seized his reminiscences,
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Speaker 1: aware that these two were trying to get their thoughts
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Speaker 1: through to him. That is why we have come. The
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Speaker 1: Empress Udalla too wishes a story, the story of the
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Speaker 1: first spaceflight from Discra and the events that brought it about,
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Speaker 1: and of how you I, of how I came to
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Speaker 1: be as you see me. Now, I shall be delighted
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Speaker 1: my children to tell it again. But first prepare the
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Speaker 1: trance to electors so that it may be recorded faithfully.
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Speaker 1: Brainall directed them to a machine on the far side
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Speaker 1: of the room and instructed them as to its operation.
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Speaker 1: Soon the hundreds of tiny coils were humming, and a
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Speaker 1: maze of tubes fed out of the machine, on which
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Speaker 1: would be recorded Brainall's every thought. For the moment he
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Speaker 1: paused gently, swaying, pulsing, a huge independent brain suspended in
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Speaker 1: the pale green liquid. Then he began his story, Your
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Speaker 1: Supreme Beneficence. When the imperial messengers came to me bringing
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Speaker 1: the communication with which you deigned to address my decrepit solitude,
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Speaker 1: it was like a glorious ray of light come to
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Speaker 1: illumine the deepening darkness of my declining years. It is
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Speaker 1: with trepidation that I set about to fulfill your exalted command.
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Speaker 1: Five millenniums I even more have passed since those who
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Speaker 1: were part of that segment of history into which you
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Speaker 1: inquire have become but driptfting dust. Only within the feeble
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Speaker 1: memory of your humblest servant is there any record of it.
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Speaker 1: Five millenniums I. That was truly the golden period of
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Speaker 1: our beloved Discra. Not that our period under your serene
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Speaker 1: effulgence is not golden. Indeed, but in that day all
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Speaker 1: Discra was under the glorious rule of Paladin. His city
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Speaker 1: on the scarlet shores of our central sea was the
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Speaker 1: wonder of us. All aye, we had a sea then,
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Speaker 1: where there is now but desert. The intelligent planets were three,
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Speaker 1: our own Discra, of course, fourth from the Sun and
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Speaker 1: the nearest the sun, Merla, that fiery globe where life
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Speaker 1: apes the quality of our own salamander, existing by necessity
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Speaker 1: near the flames, And second from the sun Venea, the
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Speaker 1: cloud capped world, where life exalts the virtues of the
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Speaker 1: fish of the third planet, Terra. We then knew little.
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Speaker 1: Our cities faced the sun in those days, towering in
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Speaker 1: polychromatic splendor. Height was no obstacle then, for we had
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Speaker 1: wings wings. Think of it, oh, beneficence. No need had
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Speaker 1: we of clumsy metal vessels but all that has changed now,
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Speaker 1: no whir of wings disturbs the air, and our form
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Speaker 1: textural splendors rise within the history of this change is
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Speaker 1: what your Supreme Exultation would know. This, then, is the
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Speaker 1: record with the rule of Paladin was born the age
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Speaker 1: of science, not so much due to the intellects of
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Speaker 1: that day as through the driving urge of ultimate necessity.
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Speaker 1: For Paladin had a brother, Thid. He was unfortunately a mutant.
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Speaker 1: Whereas our features were delicate and quite regular, this were
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Speaker 1: gross and stamped with power. Is royal head was too
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Speaker 1: large and cumbersome, and instead of our slender waste, he
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Speaker 1: was almost asymmetrical in shape. In short, no member of
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Speaker 1: our fairer sex, royal sex could look upon him with
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Speaker 1: thought but horror. And it was because of this that
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Speaker 1: he was dietectically conditioned for the realm of science. It
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Speaker 1: was a mistake. As the years passed, the loneliness of
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Speaker 1: his virtual exile tended to derange Thyd's prodigious mind. I
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Speaker 1: prodigious and dangerous in his manic depressive state. Then, one
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Speaker 1: day Paladin called an emergency meeting of the Inner Council.
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Speaker 1: I brainall was a member of that council, it has
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Speaker 1: come to my attention. Paladin said that Thid has been
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Speaker 1: carrying on certain dangerous experiments. Experiments of that sort could
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Speaker 1: well be inimical to us, to our very existence. We
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Speaker 1: well knew to what paladinryfronmed. But Thyd was his brother,
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Speaker 1: one of the imperial ones. No one dared speak. Why
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Speaker 1: was I not made aware of it? Sooner? Paladin demanded, sternly,
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Speaker 1: you brainal, you knew of it? Yes, your majesty, I
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Speaker 1: was frightened. I beg to explain. I have tried to
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Speaker 1: dissuade him. Paladin's visage became less stern, as though he
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Speaker 1: understood our reluctance in this matter. True, he said, Thind
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Speaker 1: is my brother. He must be mad, And I tell
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Speaker 1: you now, if he has gone as far in this
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Speaker 1: experiment as I suspect, I shall not hesitate to apply
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Speaker 1: the only remedy dictated by efficiency death. Have him brought
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Speaker 1: to me at once. But Thid was nowhere to be found.
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Speaker 1: He had learned of Paladin's anger and had fled into
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Speaker 1: the Disgren desert, where the abhorred Termans dwelt in Myriads,
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Speaker 1: despite all our effort to eradicate them. These termins were
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Speaker 1: soft bodied, subterranean creatures with an obstinate life force, and
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Speaker 1: we had long realized that they might one day be
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Speaker 1: a menace to us. So into the desert our Thid fled,
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Speaker 1: spurred by the knowledge that his life was forfeit. For
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Speaker 1: a time he was naturally thought dead. Who could survive
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Speaker 1: unprotected the extremes of heat and cold, and if by
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Speaker 1: a miracle he triumphed over the elements, how to survive
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Speaker 1: the appalling enemity of the termins, whose rudimentary brains conceived
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Speaker 1: no mercy. Nevertheless, startling bits of rumor began to drift
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Speaker 1: into our city. Rumors that Thid had been seen leading
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Speaker 1: hordes of gigantic termins across the desert wastes. We laughed,
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Speaker 1: of course, for caravanners are ever the prey of sun mirages,
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Speaker 1: and legends are dear to their souls. A legend was
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Speaker 1: begun concerning Thid. Arriving caravans vied with each other in
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Speaker 1: fantastic reports. Some had seen him with immense hordes of
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Speaker 1: the repulsive termins. Still others had discovered subterranean labyrinths being
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Speaker 1: built by the termins under his command, and had barely
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Speaker 1: escaped with their lives. And still we laughed, blessed by
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Speaker 1: the constant climate on the shores of our sea and
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Speaker 1: the beneficent rule of our exalted Paladin. And then we
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Speaker 1: ceased to laugh. Paladin called together his council of scientists.
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Speaker 1: Can it be? Paladin asked, Two whole caravans have vanished
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Speaker 1: on the way to Eska beyond the mountains, And he
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Speaker 1: told us more reports that had arrived from other cities.
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Speaker 1: Survivors had arrived with the light of madness in their eyes,
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Speaker 1: babbling some nameless fear. Others had died from ghastly wounds,
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Speaker 1: great burns that refused to heal, but spread a kind
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Speaker 1: of disease through the tissues. I brainaw examined some of
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Speaker 1: these wounds and report ordered to Paladin. Only a perverted
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Speaker 1: scientific intellects such as Thids, could have evolved weapons to
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Speaker 1: inflict such wounds. If he has organized the termins, suggested
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Speaker 1: another council member. Despite their pigamy size, they will become
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Speaker 1: a menace that cannot be ignored. We have delayed too long,
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Speaker 1: thundered Paladin. Fine Thid I commanded an army, the greatest
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Speaker 1: ever assembled on Diskra was sent forth to hunt out
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Speaker 1: Thid and exterminate the termins, whom he had managed to organize.
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Speaker 1: By Heaven only knew what magic The planet must be
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Speaker 1: cleansed of that leprous form of life, else there would
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Speaker 1: be no peace. But we did not know what depths
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Speaker 1: of horror we were to plum. Even now, O illustrious
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Speaker 1: Empress Reason reels and totters at the remembrance, I led
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Speaker 1: one find a vision of the Imperial Guards, armored warriors
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Speaker 1: of the first magnitude. With them, I felt able to
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Speaker 1: conquer planets, not to speak of the trivial sized termins.
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Speaker 1: For many days we trecked, penetrating ever deeper the red
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Speaker 1: desert's heart, but of the abhorred termins we caught no sight.
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Speaker 1: There was only the molten downpour of sun by day
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Speaker 1: and the desiccating numbness of cold at night. But on
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Speaker 1: the sixth day, as we encamped near an underground pool
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Speaker 1: located by our experts, we encountered the termins. The blue
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Speaker 1: wings of dusk were beating down when suddenly, from every
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Speaker 1: rampart of sand dune, every crumbling hillock, out of the
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Speaker 1: variables of the planet itself, they came like an avalanche.
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Speaker 1: They carried slender metal tubes that spewed polychromatic death at us.
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Speaker 1: Whenever the deadly discharge touched would appear horrible burns that
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Speaker 1: ate away the tissues. But that isn't what paralyzed us.
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Speaker 1: We had known these vermin to be short of twelve
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Speaker 1: inches tall, but now they reared monstrously four feet into
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Speaker 1: the air. Their black, hairy limbs lashed in an ecstasy
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Speaker 1: of murder lust, their beady eyes gleamed with fiendish purpose,
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Speaker 1: and they had intelligent leaders. The sight of these monsters
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Speaker 1: grown to such awful size struck terror into the hearts
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Speaker 1: of our legion. Nevertheless, we who are seven feet tall,
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Speaker 1: towered above them as we fought with the strength and
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Speaker 1: ferocity of desperation. Every weapon at our command was brought
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Speaker 1: into play, and they were blast and insered by the myriads.
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Speaker 1: Still they came on blindly, unswervingly, as if driven by
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Speaker 1: a single prodigious force. How these life forms had grown
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Speaker 1: to such bestial proportions was not known until later we
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Speaker 1: captured a few and delicately probed them while still alive,
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Speaker 1: of course, dias their anatomy, until we found that some
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Speaker 1: genius had managed to control their growth through glandular development.
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Speaker 1: That genius could have only been our thid. Soon the
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Speaker 1: desert was covered by a sea of their dead and ours.
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Speaker 1: The stench was unbearable, for the termins exude an odor
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Speaker 1: of their own, particularly in death, which is sheer nausea.
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Speaker 1: But lest I offend your refined sensibilities, Olcerene, Empress, perhaps
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Speaker 1: it were best that I draw a veil of darkness
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Speaker 1: over that shambles of horror. At last, it seemed as
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Speaker 1: if only utter annihiliation of both sides would be the outcome.
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Speaker 1: Already the battle had lasted for three obeisances of our
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Speaker 1: discra to its parent son. And then wisely, our glorious
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Speaker 1: paladin flashed to us the command to retreat. Already Esca
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Speaker 1: and Kraj have fallen, with all the populace wiped out,
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Speaker 1: said the message, the terms converging upon our capital city,
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Speaker 1: return here with all haste. So it was that we
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Speaker 1: retreated those who remained of us to the capital and
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Speaker 1: prepared to make a formidable stand. The other armies of
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Speaker 1: our empire had done likewise. Who would have thought that
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Speaker 1: this despised, destructive form of life could ever become such
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Speaker 1: a menace. We remembered one of Fidd's treatises on the
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Speaker 1: noxious pests, in which he had maintained that they had
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Speaker 1: rudimentary intelligence and an interesting, if subprimitive form of social life.
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Speaker 1: How we had laughed at the thought of imputing a
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Speaker 1: social order to these subterranean aphids. But we weren't laughing now.
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Speaker 1: A race of malignant monsters had sprung up in the
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Speaker 1: twenty years that Thid had vanished into the desert of Thid.
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Speaker 1: Nothing more was seen, but we knew he must still
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Speaker 1: exist somewhere among the termans under that baleful inventive genius.
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Speaker 1: Their weapons seemed to multiply, and we were forced to
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Speaker 1: tax our scientists to the utmost in order to have
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Speaker 1: weapons of defense and yes o beneficence defense. For now.
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Speaker 1: Though we had managed to stem their attack on our capital,
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Speaker 1: they were steadily encroaching on our territory. Underground lakes and
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Speaker 1: streams were damned by these fiends. Vast areas of vegetation
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Speaker 1: were denuded, Precious minds of rare metals were converted by them,
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Speaker 1: under Thyd's direction, into sources for their ceaseless attacks. Ay,
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Speaker 1: we died a thousand deaths multiplied a thousand times our ethromagnum,
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Speaker 1: by which our telepathic vibrations were amplified for planetary broadcast
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Speaker 1: became a monotonous recorder of tragedy, as city after city
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Speaker 1: fell to the hordes. For untold years, this savage struggle
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Speaker 1: went on, how well we realized that this was a
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Speaker 1: war forced sole dominance of the planet, until at last
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Speaker 1: only our proud capital, by the shores of the scarlet
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Speaker 1: Sea and its immense valley, was left to us. We
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Speaker 1: must evolve the principles of interspatial travel, Paladin told us, sadly,
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Speaker 1: the day may come when we shall need it. Hitherto,
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Speaker 1: our rare flights to Venea and Merla had been primitive
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Speaker 1: affairs in which the dangerous rock of principle was employed,
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Speaker 1: with the terrific effects of acceleration, crushing the crews and
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Speaker 1: making landing an even greater hazard than the flight itself.
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Speaker 1: But now, through inconceivable efforts of thought, i through sheer desperation,
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Speaker 1: our scientists evolved a system of atomic integration in which
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Speaker 1: free orbital electrons were utilized to create atomic quantities beyond
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Speaker 1: our known table, drawing upon the energy that could be
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Speaker 1: harnessed in the process. It is difficult to describe otherwise
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Speaker 1: than through pure mathematics, though if your serene effulgence wishes,
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Speaker 1: I will be happy to describe it to you at
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Speaker 1: a later date. It will take some little effort to
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Speaker 1: recall the exact formulae. We must send an expedition to Terra.
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Speaker 1: Paladin told us from what we have been able to
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Speaker 1: gather astronomically, that planet seems habitable. Merla, we know, is
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Speaker 1: out of the question. It is a holocaust of fire,
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Speaker 1: and to dwell on the semi aquatic world of Venea,
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Speaker 1: a new environmental adaptation would be necessary. Fantastic, wasn't it,
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Speaker 1: o Exalted Empress, that we, the rightful lords of Discre,
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Speaker 1: should be compelled to abandon our beloved homes by a
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Speaker 1: horde of vermin. Indeed, it was a tragic day when
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Speaker 1: the first scientific expedition was assembled, and I brainall was
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Speaker 1: honoured beyond my humbled desserts by this supreme magnificence, Paladin.
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Speaker 1: I was assigned as recorder on the expedition. Strapped and
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Speaker 1: cushioned until not an inch of my body was visible,
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Speaker 1: I was launched into space together with my fellow scientists
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Speaker 1: within the spheroid confines of our atomic projectile. The agony
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Speaker 1: of enduring even for seconds the required acceleration will forever
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Speaker 1: remain in my mind as the ultimate in torture. But
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Speaker 1: at last the agony was gone, as we traveled at
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Speaker 1: an unimaginable speed toward the planet which we hoped would
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Speaker 1: be our future home. No, not hoped, because meanwhile on Diskra,
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Speaker 1: the experiments with acid gas were going on in a
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Speaker 1: sort of last ditch defense which we hope might stem
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Speaker 1: the endless hordes. It was on the eleventh day that
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Speaker 1: we really saw Terra in its full prismatic glory. For
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Speaker 1: days it had loomed larger in our three dimensional electrocne
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Speaker 1: where we studied its continents and oceans to select the
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Speaker 1: likeliest spot for us landing. Tara was intensely blue, now
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Speaker 1: rivling in color the priceless zappherings of our own Discra.
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Speaker 1: I hope, in the humblest depths of my mind, O
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Speaker 1: Empress Udallah, that you shall never know the unplumbed abyss
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Speaker 1: of loneliness we all felt. At last we were forced
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Speaker 1: to use the forward atomic beam to break our meteoric
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Speaker 1: entrance to the heavy atmosphere. We had, of course, turned
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Speaker 1: on the neutralizing frige erectifiers that formed a network on
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Speaker 1: the outer shell of our sphere. At last we were
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Speaker 1: through dipping lower. As we circled, we discerned majestic oceans,
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Speaker 1: ice clad peaks crowning the stark glory of the landscape,
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Speaker 1: and then more inviting lands criss crossed by rivers and
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Speaker 1: studded with shining lakes. It was to us o great beneficence,
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Speaker 1: a paradise indeed entranced. We all but forgot our landing,
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Speaker 1: which would require the utmost skill. Brunos, our greatest navigator,
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Speaker 1: was at the controls, padded and cushioned beyond the possibility
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Speaker 1: of injury. The rest of us retired to the special
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Speaker 1: crash room. I remember we carried in our laboratory in
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Speaker 1: a special container of glassaren two embalmed specimens of the
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Speaker 1: monstrous termins. These we were to show as a warning
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Speaker 1: to whatever race existed here. One glance at the revolting
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Speaker 1: monsters would have been enough for an intelligent race. Now
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Speaker 1: that would not be necessary. Terrace seemed uninhabited. We had
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Speaker 1: seen no cities as we circumnavigated the globe, had intelligent
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Speaker 1: life forms failed as yet to materialize on this verdant world.
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Speaker 1: We assumed that fact, in our joyous eagerness to feel
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Speaker 1: the good earth beneath us, prepared a land came the
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Speaker 1: warning from Brunos. To this day, I cannot say what happened.
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Speaker 1: No one knew. For the brief instant in which I
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Speaker 1: remained conscious, I felt as if Tara had burst asunder
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Speaker 1: under the terrific impact. Nor do I know when I
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Speaker 1: finally struggled upward from oblivion. It may have been hours
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Speaker 1: later or days. Many of us were dead. I was
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Speaker 1: a hopelessly crushed horror who still lived, somehow miraculously. For
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Speaker 1: many days, we remained within our sphere, disposing of the dead,
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Speaker 1: tending to the injured, conserving our strength. I might have
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Speaker 1: been destroyed, but with that frantic will to live which
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Speaker 1: rises within us, I flashed a message to my companions,
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Speaker 1: I still live. Place me in the delocalizer. I will
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Speaker 1: still be of use. This was done. The delocalizer reacted
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Speaker 1: on the thalamic region of my brain, intercepted pained currents,
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Speaker 1: and allowed me to exist without physical feeling. Only my mind,
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Speaker 1: lucid and intensely live as never before. Continued to record
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Speaker 1: the adventure in this world. It was not until later
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Speaker 1: that my brain was completely disseivered from my crushed body.
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Speaker 1: My companions had tested the atmosphere and found no gases
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Speaker 1: that might have been inimical to our organisms. Thus they
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Speaker 1: prepared for the greatest adventure of all the emergence. The
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Speaker 1: locks were opened. A draft of fragrant, if heavy atmosphere
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Speaker 1: swept through our globe. It was pleasantly invigorating and bright outside,
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Speaker 1: so I was told by their telepathic messages, For I
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Speaker 1: alone remained within. Telepathically, they kept me informed as they
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Speaker 1: wandered up the narrow valley. The soil was firm and
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Speaker 1: amazingly fertile. Vegetation grew thickly everywhere. They reached the far
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Speaker 1: end of the valley at last, and rocky ramparts towered
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Speaker 1: over them. Then it was how can I begin to
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Speaker 1: describe to you, Exalted Empress? From their minds coming back
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Speaker 1: to me was a sudden flood of excited, hysterical thought.
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Speaker 1: It seemed filled with intense loathing and fear. Imagine me
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Speaker 1: there if you can, helpless and in a frenzy of despair,
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Speaker 1: wondering what they could have encountered desperately, I extended my potential.
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Speaker 1: I managed to into it a fierce battle in which
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Speaker 1: they were engaging. Some of my companions were dying. Hordes
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Speaker 1: of fierce denizens from the rocks above were descending upon them.
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Speaker 1: They had taken weapons along, true, but I could sense
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Speaker 1: now by their frantic thought, that these warlike creatures of
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Speaker 1: Terra numbered in the hundreds, with hordes of them swarming
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Speaker 1: from beyond. For a long while the battle raged. Then
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Speaker 1: I sensed that my companions were retreating. Oh, I was glad,
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Speaker 1: glad at last I would not be left alone. But
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Speaker 1: of the two score who had ventured out, only six returned.
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Speaker 1: As they operated the lock of the ship and tumbled in,
24:08
Speaker 1: I could see, or rather perceive, a long part of
24:11
Speaker 1: the terrain behind them. Then it was that my mind sickened,
24:17
Speaker 1: for the creatures of this bright new world were termins
24:21
Speaker 1: slightly different from those we had battled on Discra. True,
24:26
Speaker 1: these were even more monstrous, over six feet tall, with long,
24:30
Speaker 1: shaggy manes and reddish fuzz covering their four limbs. O beneficence,
24:35
Speaker 1: I swear it, sickening blue eyes. They walked upright and
24:40
Speaker 1: carried crude weapons shafts of wood fitted with sharp edged stone.
24:45
Speaker 1: Not until much later did my returning companions tell me
24:49
Speaker 1: what they had seen through their telescopic lenses. Just beyond
24:53
Speaker 1: this valley were vast plains, where the Termins seemed to
24:56
Speaker 1: number in the thousands, huge nomadic tribes of them. There
25:01
Speaker 1: were other creatures as well, some massive beyond all belief,
25:05
Speaker 1: others fierce and blood lusting with huge, sabrelike teeth. We
25:10
Speaker 1: could colonize terror, indeed, was the consensus of our thoughts.
25:15
Speaker 1: But at what a price to be forever battling these creatures,
25:19
Speaker 1: particularly the Termins, that abominable genus Homo. Can you imagine, oh, emperorseudallah,
25:28
Speaker 1: how the irony of it bid us. It was almost
25:31
Speaker 1: more than we could bear to think that on Discre
25:34
Speaker 1: our own genus formacae was in life for death struggle
25:38
Speaker 1: with these creatures, and we had found them swarming here
25:41
Speaker 1: as well. All, all of this lush, verdant world was defiled.
25:47
Speaker 1: There was nothing we remaining seven could do. Now. Sadly,
25:52
Speaker 1: we set about repairing the ship so that we could
25:55
Speaker 1: bear the awful tidings back to Discra. As we sped
25:58
Speaker 1: again toward our belofe of planet. A somber pall fell
26:02
Speaker 1: upon us. The interchange of thoughts were brief and tinged
26:06
Speaker 1: with a profound despair. This resolved into amazement. However, as
26:12
Speaker 1: we came ever closer to Discra, for now through our telectoscope,
26:18
Speaker 1: we could see that our planet had been subtly altered.
26:22
Speaker 1: A few symmetrical lines had appeared on the face of Discra,
26:25
Speaker 1: as if a cosmic hant had drawn straight lines across
26:29
Speaker 1: with mathematical precision. Not until we had safely landed did
26:33
Speaker 1: we learn the truth. Oh joyous news. The hordes of
26:37
Speaker 1: termins had been repulsed and were even then being slowly
26:40
Speaker 1: driven back. Our scientists had created in the laboratories a
26:45
Speaker 1: type of formic acid somewhat similar to the vysictory secretion
26:49
Speaker 1: occurring within our own bodies, but infinitely more deadly. It
26:54
Speaker 1: had been used as a weapon against the termins, and
26:58
Speaker 1: more huge wall of gaseous formic acid, held unwavering by
27:03
Speaker 1: electronic force fields, were being erected. It was these walls
27:08
Speaker 1: that caused the astronomical illusion we had seen from space.
27:12
Speaker 1: The rest o illustrious Empress, I believe you know well
27:17
Speaker 1: how the termins never again were able to penetrate our walls.
27:21
Speaker 1: How we waged war on the detestable creatures for a
27:24
Speaker 1: number of years, until finally no trace of them remained
27:27
Speaker 1: on diskra I. Five millenniums have passed since the events
27:32
Speaker 1: I have related. Five millenniums since my crushed body was
27:36
Speaker 1: done away with, and I was preserved in my rectangle
27:39
Speaker 1: of glasserin with a constantly renovated thought, life fluid, kept
27:44
Speaker 1: exquisitely warm. In this state. I have accompanied many other
27:49
Speaker 1: expeditions to the planets in my capacity of official recorder.
27:53
Speaker 1: But I am yours to command, Exalted Princess, should you
27:57
Speaker 1: wish to hear of them. But I have warning. Slowly
28:01
Speaker 1: I have developed a new sense that needs not eyes,
28:05
Speaker 1: nor ears, nor sense of touch, no antennae, even such
28:09
Speaker 1: as I once possessed, but unites and transcends all these.
28:14
Speaker 1: And I beg of you, in my utmost abject humility.
28:17
Speaker 1: Do not venture to remove even one formic acid wall,
28:21
Speaker 1: either from above or from its depth into the ground.
28:25
Speaker 1: Rather build more perceptively. I shudder in the awful remembrance
28:30
Speaker 1: of their occasion, and the day may come when they
28:33
Speaker 1: will be needed once more. Thus I warn humbly and
28:37
Speaker 1: remain your Supreme Fertility's most insignificant servant. Brainal end of
28:44
Speaker 1: section sixteen