Beyond the Vanishing Point

ent showed dimly white through the murk to our left, a great hanging veil of ice higher than Niagara. Further ahead,

t. Anne. We pass this side of it. Put the muffle

ere past all thought of that. We were both desperate; the slow prudent process

the sounds of this night blizzard

"There are his

Bay. The blizzard was roaring out of the North and we were heading into it. I saw, on what seemed like a dome-sh

aid. "Low-we can chance it. And fi

les an hour facing the gale, though it was sixty or seventy when we turned. There were a score or two of hooded gr

ll. We had a good view of it. A weird enough looking place, here on its lonel

it, Polter had built a stone and brick wall. A miniature of the Great Wall in China! We could see that it was fully thirty feet high with what evide

funnels which looked like a smelter; a huge domelike spread of translucent glass over what might have been the top of a mineshaft. It looke

like a miniature of the Chateau Frontenac. We saw a stone corridor on the ground connectin

overed. But the mile-wide inner area was dark in many places. Spots of light were at the little wall-gates. There was a glow all along the top of the wall. Lights we

ircled back and were a mile or so off toward the river. "The trees-and you s

land and accost one of the gate guards. Force our way in. Once inside the wall, on foot in the dark

mile from one of the gates. We left t

. The falling flakes whirled around us. The darkness was solid. Our helmeted leather-furred flying suits were soon shapeless with a gathering wh

a tiny spot of

d tore away my words. We could see the narrow rectangle

an." I gripped him

es

he opens the gate, let me handle him. You-

gate. I had the horrible feeling that a shot would greet u

hat do y

e Mr.

nd frost. A man stood in the doorway of a lighted little cubby

o one. Who

nd. I shoved him back, and took a

Newspaperman from Montre

hpiece is there-out there to the left. Bare your

y; there was only his extended hand an

hone. Won't you open the gate? It's cold out here

oorway was the open darkness within the wall. A scuffed

pocket was leveled. But from the cubby doorway, I saw that the guard was

ta

pened in an instant, so quickly Alan and I had barely time to make a move. I real

ad, yelling, "

uard had received a si

There was a heavy sickening-sweet smell. It seemed like chloroform.

leapt aside. I heard the faint hiss of h

run! Do

t seemed, as I went down, that Alan's

first, there were dim muffled voices and the tread of footsteps. Then I knew that I was lying on the grou

d, I saw that the dome was overhead. This was a circular, hundred-foot-wide room. It was dimly lighted. The figures of men were moving about, their great misshapen shadows shi

nward. Under it I saw a low platform raised a foot or two above the ground. A giant electro-microscope was hung with its twenty foot cylinder above the platfo

It rested on the platform floor, a two-foot square surface of smooth white marble. A little roped rail

. And I strained at my bonds; mouthed the gag with futile, frenzied effort. I could no more th

with the light over them I could see them clearly. Babs' slim figure was clad in a long skirted dress-pale blue, now, with the light on it. Her long black hair had fal

tural voice. "T

chair in which the man at the microscope was sitting. And Polter's head barely reached its seat! Babs was clinging to him now. Another moment and they were both tiny figures down by the chair-leg. Then they began walking with swaying steps toward the miniature railing of the white slab. The white reflection from the slab plainly il

ndless as a butterfly wing brushed my face! I jerked my head aside. On the floor, within six inches of my eyes, I saw the tiny figure of a girl an inch high! She stood, with a warning gesture to her lips-a human girl in a filmy f

d out of it. Then I felt her brush against the back of my head. My ear was near the gr

ove your head. Y

ld myself rigid. Then t

nd. I have the drug