Chapter V: Eternity or Death

He was well in the center of the cavity when the soft ground beneath him gave way suddenly and he catapulted below into the darkness. Through the Stygian gloom he fell in what seemed to be an endless drop. He finally crashed upon something hard. The thin crust of the volcano’s mouth had broken through, precipitating him into the deep, hollow interior.

It must have been a long ways to fall--or so it had seemed. Why was he not knocked senseless or killed? Then he felt himself over with three tentacles. His metal legs were four broken, twisted masses of metal, while the lower half of his cubic body was jammed out of shape and split. He could not move, and half of his six tentacles were paralyzed.

How would he ever get out of there? he wondered. The machine men of Zor might never find him. What would happen to him, then? He would remain in this deathless, monotonous state forever in the black hole of the volcano’s interior unable to move. What a horrible thought! He could not starve to death; eating was unknown among the Zoromes, the machines requiring no food. He could not even commit suicide. The only way for him to die would be to smash the strong metal head, and in his present immovable condition, this was impossible.

It suddenly occurred to him to radiate thoughts for help. Would the Zoromes receive his messages? He wondered how far the telepathic messages would carry. He concentrated the powers of his mind upon the call for help, and repeatedly stated his position and plight. He then left his mind clear to receive the thought answers of the Zoromes. He received none. Again he tried. Still he received no welcoming answer. Professor Jameson became dejected.

It was hopeless. The telepathic messages had not reached the machine men of Zor. They were too far away, just as one person may be out of earshot of another’s voice. He was doomed to a terrible fate of existence! It were better that his rocket had never been found. He wished that the Zoromes had destroyed him instead of bringing him back to life--back to this!

His thoughts were suddenly broken in upon.

“We’re coming!”

“Don’t give up hope!”

If the professor’s machine body had been equipped with a heart, it would have sung for joy at these welcome thought impressions. A short time later there appeared in the ragged break of the volcano’s mouth, where he had fallen through, the metal head of one of the machine men.

“We shall have you out of there soon,” he said.

The professor never knew how they managed it for he lost consciousness under some strange ray of light they projected down upon him in his prison. When he came to consciousness once more, it was to find himself inside the space ship.

“If you had fallen and had smashed your head, it would have been all over with you,” were the first thought impulses which greeted him. “As it is, however, we can fix you up first rate.”

“Why didn’t you answer the first time I called to you?” asked the professor. “Didn’t you hear me?”

“We heard you, and we answered, but you didn’t hear us. You see, your brain is different than ours, and though you can send thought waves as far as we can you cannot receive them from such a great distance.”

“I’m wrecked,” said the professor, gazing at his twisted limbs, paralyzed tentacles and jammed body.

“We shall repair you,” came the reply. “It is your good fortune that your head was not crushed.”

“What are you going to do with me?” queried the professor. “Will you remove my brains to another machine?”

“No, it isn’t necessary. We shall merely remove your head and place it upon another machine body.”

The Zoromes immediately set to work upon the task, and soon had Professor Jameson’s metal head removed from the machine which he had wrecked in his fall down the crater. All during the painless operation, the professor kept up a series of thought exchanges in conversation with the Zoromes, and it seemed but a short time before his head surmounted a new machine and he was ready for further exploration. In the course of his operation, the space ship had moved to a new position, and now as they emerged 25X-987 kept company with Professor Jameson.

“I must keep an eye on you,” he said. “You will be getting into more trouble before you get accustomed to the metal bodies.”

But Professor Jameson was doing a great deal of thinking. Doubtlessly, these strange machine men who had picked up his rocket in the depths of space and had brought him back to life, were expecting him to travel with them and become adopted into the ranks of the Zoromes. Did he want to go with them? He couldn’t decide. He had forgotten that the machine men could read his innermost thoughts.