Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930

Even now, as Sarka raced for the aircar, and Jaska with him, he could feel a backward pulling that was well-nigh invincible. Someone was willing him to return, willing the Gnomes to pursue him, willing the cubes to refuse obedience to him; but he laughed and stepped to the aircar, passing by the nearest writhing tentacle as though he knew it possessed no power to harm him. The tentacle swept aside, and did not try to bar him, while he sent his will crashing against that brightly gleaming cube. "Into the aircar! We enter with you!" The cube vanished instantly, and it seemed to Sarka that invisible hands caught at his feet, lifting him up through the trap-door in the belly of the aircar, up and inside. The door swung shut, and in the forward end of the vast aircar gleamed the cube which had obeyed his command! Sarka sent one thought careening outward from the aircar, a command to the cubes which stood watch beneath the other aircars. "Obey the Radiant People, and through them, me!" The light of the cube made the interior of the aircar as light as day, and Sarka was struck at once with another phenomenon. He could see through the sides of the car in any direction. And what he saw filled him with a sudden fear! Out of the crater poured myriads of the Gnomes, and up the sides of it came myriads of the gleaming cubes, all racing toward the cars. "Get back! Get back!" he commanded the Gnomes and the cubes.