Mind Webs - The Metal Man

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2:20Mind-web. Welcome to a half hour of Mind-web. Short stories from the world's expected infection. This is Michael Hansen with a story this time from The Best of Amazing, selected by Joseph Ross. It's a story that originally appeared in Amazing magazine in 1928. It's written by Jack Williamson, and the title is The Metal Man. The Metal Man stands in the dark dusty corner of the Taibern College Museum.

3:25Just who is responsible for the figure being moved there or why it was done I do not know? To the casual eye, it looks to be merely an ordinary life-size statue. The visitor who gives it a closer view marvels at the minute perfection of the detail of hair and skin, at the silent tragedy in the set's determined expression and poise, and at the remarkable greenish cast of the metal of which it is composed, but most of all at the peculiar mark upon the chest. It's a six-sided blot of deep crimson hue, and the surface oddly granular and strange wavering lines radiating from it, lines of a lighter shade of red. Of course it is generally known that the metal man was once Professor Thomas Kelvin of the geology department. There are current, many garbled and inaccurate accounts of the weird disaster that befell

4:27him. I believe I am the only one to whom he encrusted his story, and it is to put these fantastic tales at rest that I have decided to publish the narrative that Professor Kelvin sent me. For some years he had been spending his summer vacations along the Pacific coast of Mexico, prospecting for radium. It was three months since he had returned from his last expedition. Evidently he had been successful beyond his wild stream. He did not come to Tyburn, but we heard stories of his selling millions of dollars worth of salt to radium, and giving as much more to institutions employing radium treatment. And it was said that he was sick of a strange disorder that defied the world's best specialists, and that he was pouring out his millions in the establishment of scholarships and endowments as if he expected to die soon.

5:30One cold stormy day when the sea was running high on the unprotected coast which the cottage overlooks, I saw a sail out to the north. It rapidly drew nearer, and till I could tell that it was a small sailing schooner with auxiliary power. When the boat touched four men sprang out and rushed it up higher on the sand, as a fifth tall man rose in the stern, the four picked up a great chest and started up in my direction. The fifth person followed leisurely, silently, and without invitation the man brought the chest up the beach into my yard and set it down in front of the door. The fifth man, a hard-faced Yankee skipper, walked up to me and said, I am Captain McAndreuse. I was glad to meet the captain, but wondered if there was some mistake. He said,

6:30No, not at all. The man in that chest was transferred to my ship from the liner plutonia three days ago. He has paid me for my services, and I believe his instructions have been carried out. Good day, sir. A turn down his hill and started away. A man in the chest. Well, he walked on, unheeding, and the semen followed, and I stood and watched them walk down to the boat and roll back to the schooner. I gazed at its sails until they were lost against the dull blue of the clouds. Frankly, I feared to open the chest. At last I nerve myself to do it. It was unlocked. I threw back the lid, with a shock of uncontrollable horror that left me half-six four hours. I saw in it stark-maked with a strange crimson march standing lividly out from the pale green of the breast. The metal man, just as you may see him in the museum.

7:33Of course I knew at once that it was Calvin. For a long time I bent trembling and staring at him, then I saw an old canteen purple stained, lying by the head of the figure, and under it a sheaf of man-new script. I got the ladder out, walked with shaken steps to the easy chair in the house, and read this story. Dear Russell, you are my best-money-in-a-met friend. I've arranged to have my body and the story brought to you. I just drank the last of the wonderful purple liquid that has kept me alive since I came back, and I have scantime to finish it was necessarily a brief account of my adventure. But my affairs are in order and I die in peace. I had myself transferred to the schooner today in order to reach you as soon as it could be and to avoid possible complications. I trust Captain McAndrews. When I left France I hoped to see you before the end but fate ruled otherwise.

8:35You know that the goal of my expedition was the headwaters of a real Dele Saint-Grey the River of Blood. It's a small stream whose strangely red waters flow into the Pacific. On my trip last year I had discovered that its waters were powerfully radioactive. Water has the power of absorbing radium emanations and emitting them in turn, and I hope to find radium bearing minerals in the bed of the upper river. Twenty-five miles above the mouth the river emerges from the Corderas. There are a few miles of rapids and back of them the river plunges down to magnificent waterfall. No exploring partied and ever been back to the falls. This is Matt Rogers from Los Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Boan Yang. This is Boan Yang from Los Culturistas, Matt Rogers and Boan Yang. Okay we've been talking about Cubimeil for a minute now Bo and wow the feedback we're getting. I mean so many of y'all love this stuff. You're stopping us in the street going I love Cubimeil. And if you're thinking wait what is Cubimeil?

9:36Do you not have the internet? It's the OG Japanese mayonnaise. The one with the red cap and the little baby on the bottle. Once you know what you start seeing it everywhere. People ask what makes it different from basic mayo. Will the answer egg yolks? Cubimeil is made with egg yolks only giving it this incredibly rich umami flavor that elevates everything. Burgers, fries, sandwiches, chicken, noodles, chefs use it, restaurants use it, people who really love food and flavor use it. Whatever you're eating, Cupid it. So if you haven't tried Cupid yet, find the bottle with the red cap and see what everyone's talking about. You'll understand Cupid, the original Japanese mayonnaise. Show button here. Football season is finally back and prize picks is bringing out their best offer yet. New users who sign up will get $150 in lineups if you win your first $5 lineup. That's right, if you win your first $5 lineup, you'll get $150 in lineups. On prize picks, you simply pick two to six players, pick more or less on their stat

10:40projections and submit your lineup. Then, sweat it out as you watch your picks play out live. It's the best way to get more locked in on game day. Make all the picks you want. This football season, all in the same app. Also, prize picks is going crazy with the deals to start the football season. Giving users a new promo every day during stack September. And now, prize picks is available nationwide. So what are you waiting for? Lock in for kickoff because everyone and everything is on prize picks. What you want? Download the app today and use Co-Ad large to get $150 in lineups if you win your first $5 lineup. On prize picks, run your game. Meet the Red Bull Dragonberry Emergizer. It's one of the many new drinks out now. Who knew ice cold drinks could be so fire. Try them all only at my dogs. I'd hired an Indian guide and made a mubleback journey to their foot. At once I saw the futility of attempting to climb the precipitous escarpment.

11:42But the water there was even more powerfully radioactive than at the mouth. There was nothing to do but return. This summer I bought a small monoplane. Although it was comparatively slow in speed and able to spend only six hours a lot, it's like weight and a small area needed for landing made it the only machine suitable for use in so rough a country. The steamer left me again on the dock to the little town of Vaca, Marena, with my stack of crates and gasoline tins. I secured the use of an abandoned shed for a hanger. I set about assembling the plane and an affordment I had completed the task. Then one morning I started the engine and made a trial flight. It flew smoothly and in the afternoon I refilled the tanks and set off for the real deal of sungra. The stream looked like a red snake crawling out the sea. There was something circumcine and its aspect. I followed it above the falls and into a region of towering mountain peaks.

12:44The river disappeared beneath the mountain. For a moment I thought of landing and then it occurred to me that it flowed subteraneously for only a few miles and would reappear farther inland. I saw it over the cliffs and came over the crater. A great pool of green fire it was fully ten miles across to the black ramparts on the farther side. The surface of the green was so smooth that at first I thought it was alike and then I knew that it must be a pool of heavy gas. In the glory of the evening sun, this no-cap summits about a brilliant, urgent crowns died with crimson tinge, with purple and gold, tainted with strange and incredibly beautiful use. Amid this wild scenery, nature had placed her greatest treasure. I knew that in the crater I would find the radium I sought. I circled about the place wrapped in wonder, as the sun sank lower, a light silver mist

13:46gathered on the peaks avvailing their wonders and flowed toward the crater. It seemed drawn with a strange attraction and then the center of the green like rows and a shining peak. It flowed up into a great hill of emerald fire. Everything was rising in the green, carrying it up. Then the vapor flowed back, revealing a strange object, still availed faintly by the green and silver clouds. It was a gigantic sphere of deep red, marked for huge oval spots of dull black. Its surface was smooth, metallic and thickly studied with great spikes that seemed of yellow fire. It was a machine, inconceivably great in size. It spun slowly as it rose on a vertical axis moving with a deliberate purpose for motion. It came up to my own level, paused and seemed to spin faster. And the silver mist was drawn to the yellow points condensing, curdling until the whole

14:50globe was a ball of lambent, argent. For a moment at home, unbelievably glorious in the light of the setting sun, then it sank ever faster until it dropped like a plummet into the sea of green. And with its fall, a sinister darkness descended upon the desolate wilderness of the peaks, and I was seized by a fear that had been deadened by amazement and realized that I had scant time to reach Vaca, Marena before complete darkness fell. Immediately I put the plane about in the direction of the town. According to my recollections I had at the time, no very definite idea of what it was I had seen, or whether the weird exhibition had been caused by human or natural agencies. I remember thinking that in such enormous quantities, as undoubtedly the crater contained it, radium might possess qualities unnoticed in small amounts, or again that there might be present radioactive minerals present unknown.

15:51It occurred to me also that perhaps some other scientists had already discovered the deposits in that what I had witnessed had been the trial of an airship in which radium was utilized as a propellant. And then I noticed that a pale, bluish luminosity was gathering about the cowl of the cockpit, and at the moment I saw that the whole machine, and even my own person, was covered with it. It was somewhat like St. Elmo's fire, except that it covered all surfaces indiscriminately instead of being restricted to sharp points. All at once I connected the phenomenon with the thing I had seen. I felt no physical discomfort in the motor continued to run, but as the blue radiance continued to increase I observed that my body felt heavier and that the machine was being drawn downward. My mind was flooded with wonder and terror. I fought to retain sufficient self possession of flying the ship. My arms were soon so heavy that I could hold them upon the controls only with difficulty.

16:52And I felt as light dizzyness do no doubt to the blood of being drawn from my head. When I recovered, I was already almost upon the green. Somehow my gravitation had been increased, and I was being drawn into the pit. It was possible to keep the plane under control only by diving and keeping that a high speed. I plunged into the green pool. The gas was not suffocating as I had anticipated. In fact, I noticed no change in the atmosphere, say that my vision was limited to a few yards around. The wings of the plane were still distinctly discernible. And suddenly a smooth sandy plane was markedly revealed below and I was able to level the ship off enough for a safe landing. As I came to a stop, I saw that the sand was slightly luminous as the green mist seemed to be in red. For a time I was confined to the ship by my own weight, but I noticed that the blue was

17:52slowly dissipating and with it, it's a fact. As soon as I was able, I climbed over the side of the cockpit, carrying my canteen and dramatic, which were themselves immensely heavy. I was unable to stand erect, but crawled off over the course shining red sand, stopping at frequent intervals to lie flat and rest. I was indefinitely fear of the force that had brought me down. I was sure it had been directed by intelligence. The floor was so smooth and level that I supposed it to be the bottom of an ancient lake. Sometimes I looked fearfully back, and when I was a hundred yards away I saw a score of lights floating through the green toward the airplane. In the luminous murk, each bright point was surrounded by a disc of paler blue. I didn't move, but lay and watch them float to the plane and wheel about it with a slow heavy motion. Closer and lower they came until they reached the ground about it.

18:56The mist was so thick as to obscure the details of the scene. This is Matt Rogers from Lost Culture East. This is Matt Rogers from Lost Culture East. This is Matt Rogers from Bowen Yang. This is Bowen Yang from Lost Culture East. This is Matt Rogers from Bowen Yang. Okay, we've been talking about Cupid male for a minute now, Bowen. And wow, the feedback we're getting. I mean, so many of y'all love this stuff. You're stopping us in the street going, I love Cupid. And if you're thinking, wait, what is Cupid? Do you not have the internet? It's the OG Japanese mayonnaise. You know what, the red cap and the little baby on the bottle. Once you know what, you start seeing it everywhere. People ask what makes it different from basic mayo? Well, the answer? Egg yolks. Soupy is made with egg yolks only, giving it this incredibly rich umami flavor that elevates everything. Burgers, fries, sandwiches, chicken, noodles. Chefs use it, restaurants use it. People who really love food and flavor use it. Whatever you're eating, Cupid.

19:57So if you haven't tried Cupid yet, find the bottle with the red cap and see what everyone's talking about. You'll understand Cupid, the original Japanese mayonnaise. Hi, I'm Gus. I'm a dog at an expert in speed. So when it comes to fast internet, I know what I'm talking about. That's why I recommend optimum fiber-powered internet. It has fast and reliable internet speeds, starting at only $30 a month with a five-year price lock. So how can you fetch such an amazing deal? By calling 8669Optimum or visiting optimum.com to switch, that's 8669Optimum. Speaking of fetch, that's my cue. Terms apply. See optimum.com for details. A new planet finis is now open in La Crescenta. Join today for $1 down $15 a month. Take advantage of our new best in class strength and cardio equipment in our spacious club. Re fitness training and so much more. Our doors are open and we're ready for you. You ready? Join the new planet fitness in La Crescenta for $1 down $15 a month.

20:58Hurry, deal ends October 4. Planet fitness, cardio, strength, recovery. Right around the corner. See club for details. Best of gravity, almost entirely gone. Though I went on hands and knees for another hundred yards to escape possible observation. When I got to my feet, the plane was lost to view. I walked on for perhaps a quarter of a mile and suddenly realized that my sense of direction was all together gone. I was completely lost in a strange world inhabited by beings whose nature and disposition I could not even guess. And then I realized that it was the height of fallet I walk about when any step mic precipitated me into a danger of which I could know nothing. I had a peculiar unpleasant feeling of helpless fear. The luminous red sand in the shining green of the air lay about in all directions. Unbroken by a single solid object, there was no life, no sound, no motion.

22:02The air hung heavy and stagnant. The flat sand was like the service of a dead and thus let's see. I felt the panic of utter isolation from humanity. The mist seemed to come closer, the strange evil in it seemed to grow more alert. Suddenly a darting light passed media like through the green above. And in my alarm I ran a few blundering steps. My foot struck a light object that rang like metal. It was a metal bird, an eagle formed of metal, with wings out spread the talons gripping the first beak set open. The color was white tinged with green. It weighed no more than the living bird. At first I thought it was a cast model. And then I saw that each feather was complete and flexible. Somehow a real eagle had been turned to metal. It seemed incredible, yet here was the concrete proof. I wondered if the radium deposits, which I had already used, explained so much, might

23:07account for this too. I was struck with fright for my own safety. Might I be changed to metal? I looked to see if there were other metal things about that I found them in abundance. I made a fearful examination of myself and through my unutterable horror I perceived that the tips of my fingernails and the fine hairs upon my hands were already changed to light green metal. The shock and nerve may completely, you cannot conceive my horror. I screamed aloud in agony of soul, careless of the terrible pose that the sound might attract. I ran off wildly, I was blind, unreasonable. I felt no fatigue as I ran, only stark terror. Bright swift moving lights passed above in the green, but I heated them not. Suddenly I came upon the great sphere that I had seen above.

24:08It rested motionless in a cradle of black metal. The yellow fire was gone from the spikes, but the red surface shone with metallic lustre. Lights floated about it. They made little bright spots in the green, like lanterns and fog. I turned and ran again, desperately. I took no note of direction nor the passage of time. Then I came upon a bank of violet vegetation, waist to deep it was, grass-like with thick narrow leaves dotted with clusters of small pink blooms and little purple berries. In a score of yards beyond I saw a sluggish red stream, a Rio de la Sandra. Here was cover at last. I threw myself down in the violet growth and lay sobbing with fatigue and terror. For a long time I was unable to stir or think. When I looked again at my fingernails, the tips of metal had doubled in width.

25:11I tried to control my agitation and to think, possibly the lights, whatever they were, would sleep by day. If I could find the plane or scale the walls, I might escape the fearful action of the radioactive minerals before it was too late. I realized that I was hungry. I plucked off a few of the purple berries and tasted them. They had a salty metallic taste and I thought they would be valueless for food. But in pulling them I had inadvertently squeezed the juice from one upon my fingers. And when I wiped it off I saw it in my amazement in my inexpressible joy that the rim of metal was gone from the fingernails that had touched. I had discovered a means of safety. I suppose the plants were able to exist there only because they had been so developed and had produced compounds counteracting the metal forming eminions. Probably their evolution began when the action was far weaker than now.

26:12And I believe I was able to withstand the more intense radiations I had survived. I lost no time in eating the cluster of the berries and then I poured the water from my canteen and filled it with their juice. I have analyzed the fluid and corresponds in some ways with the standard formulas for the neutralization of radium burns and doubtless it saved me from the terrible burns caused by the action of ordinary radium. I had walked about two and a half miles along by the violent plants. When I came to an abrupt cliff I walked off north around the rim. I had no very definite plan except to try to find a way out over the cliffs. I went on until it must have been noon though my watch had stopped. Occasionally I passed metal trees that had fallen from above and once a metallic body of a bear that slipped off a path above some time and ages passed. When there were metal birds without number we must have been accumulating through geological

27:14ages. All along up to this cliff that was perpendicularly to the limit of my vision. But now I saw a wide ledge with a sloping wall beyond a thinly visible above. In an hour I came upon it. A slender cylinder of black metal that towered a hundred feet into the greenish mist and carried at the top. Mushroom shaped orange flame. It was a strange thing. The fire was as big as a balloon, bright and steady. It looked much like a great jet of combustible gas burning as it streamed from the cylinder. I stood petrified in amazement, wondering vaguely at the what and why of the thing. And then I saw more of them back of a dimly's cores of them, a whole forest of flames. I crouched back against the cliff while I considered. Here I suppose was the city of the lights.

28:16They were sleeping now but still I had not the courage to enter. According to my calculations I had gone about 15 miles and I must be I thought almost I'm at the opposite to place where the crimson river flowed under the wall with half of the rim unexplored. If I wish to continue my journey I must go around the city if I may call it that. So I left the wall. Soon it was lost to view. I tried to keep in view the orange flames but abruptly they were gone in the mist. I walked more to the left. I came upon nothing but the wastes of red sand with a green murk above. And I wondered then the sand in the air grew slowly brighter and I knew that night had fallen. The lights were soon passing too and fro. I had seen lights the night before but they traveled high and fast. These on the other hand sailed low and I felt that they were searching.

29:21I knew that they were hunting for me. I lay down there on the sand. Vague missed veil points of light came near and fast. And then one stopped directly overhand. It descended from the circle of waiting school about it. I knew that it was useless to run and I could not have done so for my territory down and down it came. And then I saw its form. The thing was of a glittering blazing crystal. A great six-sided upright prism of red. A dozen feet in length it was with a six-pointed structure like a snowflake about the center deep blue. With pointed blue flanges running from the points of the star to angles of the prism. Soft scarlet fire flowed from the points. And on each face of the prism above and below the star was a purple cone that must have

30:23been an eye. Strange pulsating lights flickered in the crystal. It was alive with light. It fell straight toward me. It was a terribly utterly alien form of life. It was not human, not animal, not even life as we know it at all. And yet it had intelligence. Yet it was strange and foreign and devoid of feeling. It dropped until the gleaming lower point of the prism was not a yard above me. Then this scarlet fire reached out caressingly, flowed over my body. My weight grew less. I was lifted held against the point. You may see it's marked upon my chest. The thing floated into the air, carrying me. Two others were drifting about. I was overcome with nausea. The scene grew black, and I knew no more.

31:24I awoke floating free in a brilliant orange light. I touched no solid object. I rived, kicked about. At nothingness. I could not move or turn over because I could get a hold on nothing. My memory of the last two days seemed at nightmare. I had the sensation of the great space of time at past. It was a curious stiffness in my side. I examined it. He found a red scar. I believe those crystal things had cut into me. I found, with a horror you cannot understand. The mark upon my chest. Presently, it dawned upon me that I was floating. The void of gravity, and free as an object in space, in the orange flame at the top of one of the black cylinders. The crystals knew the secret of gravity.

32:27It was vital to them. And peering about, I discerned with infinite repulsion. A great, flashing body, a few yards away. This inner lights were dead so I knew that it was day and that the strange beings were sleeping. If I was ever to escape, this was the opportunity. I kicked, clawed desperately at the air, all in vain. I did not move an inch. If they had chained me, I could not have been more secure. I drew my automatic. Resolved on a desperate measure. They would not find me again alive. As I had it in my hand, an idea came into my mind. I pointed the gun to the side and fired six rapid shots. And the recoil of each explosion sent me drifting faster, rocket-wise toward the edge. I shot out into the green, at my gravity, but suddenly restored.

33:27I might have been killed by the fall, but I descended slowly and felt a curious lightness for several minutes. And to my surprise, when I struck the ground, the airplane was right before me. They had drawn it up by the base of the tower. It seemed to be intact. I started the engine with nervous haste and sprang into the cockpit. As I started another black tower loomed up abruptly before me, but I veered around it and took off from safety. Soon I landed again at Bakamarina. I had had enough of radium mining. On the beach where I landed, I sold the plane to a rancher at his own price and told him to reserve a place for me on the next steamer, doing three days. Then I went to the town, single in, eighth, and went to band. At noon, the next day, when I got up, I found that my shoes and the pockets of my clothes contained a good bit of the red sand from the crater that had been collected as I crawled

34:31about in flight from the crystal lights. I saved some of it for curiosity alone, but when I analyzed it, I found it a radium compound so rich that the little handful was worth millions of dollars. But the fortune was of little value, for despite frequent doses of the fluid from my canteen, and the best medical aid I have suffered continually. And now, with my canteen as empty, I am doomed. Your friend, Thomas Kelvin. If that's the manuscript ends, if you doubt the truth of this letter, you may see the metal man in the Tyburn Museum.

35:32That story is titled The Metal Man, written by Jack Williamson. It first appeared in Amazing Magazine during 1928. It reappears in a collection edited by Joseph Ross, called The Best of Amazing. This is Michael Hansen speaking, Technical Production for Mindwebs by Leslie Hosenoff. Mindwebs originates at WHA Radio and Madison, a service of University of Wisconsin Extension. Now at Ralph's, your points go even further. Use them your way to take dollars off groceries at checkout or save at the pump. And with low prices in every aisle plus digital and personalized coupons, it all adds up to more ways to save every trip. Ralph's, fresh for everyone. Choose from a great selection of digital coupons and use them up to five times in one transaction.

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