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289
Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930
·
Various
173
The
leader
of
the
Gnomes
was
again
the
Gnome
who
had
first
leaped
upon
Jaska
to
examine
her
curiously.
Now,
watching
the
lidless
eyes
of
this
being,
Sarka
fancied
he
could
detect
a
hint
of
some
expression.
The
Gnome
was
excited
at
some
prospect,
some
climax
which
they
were
approaching.
What?
On
and
on
they
moved.
The
blue
flames
from
the
abyss,
roaring
in
a
way
that
neither
of
the
prisoners
had
ever
experienced,
reached
upward
in
searing
tongues
toward
the
invisible
roof
of
this
place.
Then,
when
they
had
progressed
far
from
the
door
of
entry,
Sarka
gasped
at
a
new
manifestation.
Out
of
the
abyss,
some
distance
ahead,
came
a
gleaming
thing,
something
that
had
apparently
evolved
itself
out
of
the
flames
of
the
abyss.
Blue
of
color
it
was,
because
of
the
flames
from
the
pit;
but
Sarka
recognized
it
with
a
start
which
he
could
not
suppress
nor
understand.
It
was
one
of
those
cubes,
such
as
he
and
Jaska
had
seen
at
the
lip
of
the
Moon-crater!
As
they
approached,
guided
by
the
Gnomes,
other
cubes
appeared
out
of
the
abyss,
others
in
numbers
swiftly
augmented,
until
a
veritable
battalion
of
them
had
marshalled
itself,
there
at
the
lip
of
the
abyss.
Straight
toward
these
cubes
the
Gnomes
led
Sarka
and
Jaska,
and
when
they
had
reached
the
center
of
the
group,
they
halted,
forming
a
circle,
still
a
wall
to
mask
the
prisoners
from
the
heat
of
the
abyss.
The
leader
of
the
Gnomes
stopped
with
his
face,
his
lidless
eyes,
close
to
one
of
the
cubes.
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