umanity as their worshippers
believed, still held in them that essence we term human.

The spirit, the force, that filled this place had in it nothing, NOTHING
of the human.

No place? Yes, there was one--Stonehenge. Within that monolithic circle
I had felt a something akin to this, as inhuman; a brooding spirit
stony, stark, unyielding--as though not men but a people of stone had
raised the great Menhirs.

This was a sanctuary built by a people of metal!

It was filled with a soft yellow glow like pale sunshine. Up from its
floor arose hundreds of tremendous, square pillars down whose polished
sides the crocus light seemed to flow.

Far, far as the gaze could reach, the columns marched, oppressively
ordered, appallingly mathematical. From their massiveness distilled a
sense of power, mysterious, mechanical yet--living; something priestly,
hierophantic--as though they were guardians of a shrine.

Now I saw whence came the light suffusing this place. High up among the
pillars floated scores of orbs that shone like pale gilt frozen suns.
Great and small, through all the upper levels these strange luminaries
gleamed, fixed and motionless, hanging unsupported in space. Out from
their shining spherical surfaces darted rays of the same pale gold,
rigid, unshifting, with the same suggestion of frozen stillness.

"They look like big Christmas-tree stars," muttered Drake.

"They're lights," I answered. "Of course they are. They're not
matter--not metal, I mean--"

"There's something about them like St. Elmo's fire, witch
lights--condensations of atmospheric electricity," Ventnor's voice was
calm; now that it was plain we were nearing the heart of this mystery
in which we were enmeshed he had clearly taken fresh grip, was again his
observant, scientific self.

We watched, once more silent; and indeed we had spoken little since
we had begun that ride whose end we sensed close. In the unfolding of
enigmatic happening after happening the mind had deserted speech and
crouched listening at every door of sight and hearing to gather some
clue to causes, some thread of understanding.

Slowly now we were gliding through the forest of pillars; so effortless,
so smooth our flight that we seemed to be standing still, the tremendous
columns flitting past us, turning and wheeling around us, dizzyingly. My
head swam with the mirage motion, I closed my eyes.

"Look," Drake was shaking me. "Look. What do you make of that?"

Half a