Free The Door to Saturn by Clark Ashton Smith

something about them which suggested a swift-growing fungi. It would seem that they propagated themselves by means of a spore which developed with infernal celerity; for even when most of them were seemingly blotted out of existence, new organisms began to spring up. It was seen that the ray-weapons could achieve only a temporary victory; for time after time, when the infested area had been wholly cleared to all appearance, another horde of monstrosities would leap to life.
    More of the air-ships appeared, and the Tloongs on some of them began to drop a sort of vegetable pulp which was eagerly devoured by the organisms. It must have contained a virulent poison; for the masses withered and blackened immediately, and lay dead without renewing themselves in their former manner. It was now seen that they had emerged from a large hole in the ground beneath the jungle; the last of them was slain as it crawled forth; and the hole was carefully sealed by means of atom-integrators which filled it with an adamantine material.
    The legion of air-vehicles now dispersed, and the conductors of the earth-men resumed their journey. Soon the platform approached a building larger than any that Volmar and his crew had yet beheld, and landed on a midway terrace higher above the ground than any skyscraper. From this the men were led through numberless doors and unending corridors to an immense room at the heart of the edifice.
    Here, on a high seat of some dazzling crystalline mineral wrought with arabesques that suggested the signs of an unfamiliar transcendental algebra, a being was enthroned who bore upon the gigantic orb of his head a superimposed sphere which afforded the sole illumination of the room. He held in one of his members a cone-shaped object which was probably a vessel of some Polarian chemical use; and other vessels, having a vague, fantastic likeness to retorts and cupels and test-tubes, were arranged beside his throne on lofty tables.
    Making gestures of profound obeisance, the guides addressed this being with a long and curiously modulated form of salutation in which the word koum was repeated several times. Volmar and his men surmised that this term was perhaps equivalent to “king” or ‘‘emperor.”
    In a voice more musical than a finely keyed and chorded dulcimer, the seated being began to question the guides, and a long dialogue ensued. The earthlings were thrilled by the celestial tones, and awed by the gaze of this entity, behind whose many-faceted diamond eye they felt the workings of a colossal brain embued with incalculable knowledge and illimitable power. And they were somehow conscious that a decision was being made concerning themselves, and that their ultimate fate was now in process of determination. And when, at the close of the conversation, the throned being uttered after a significant pause a sentence of terrible and thrilling melody, they knew with a sense of esoteric fear and marvel that their fate was sealed, though what that fate might be they could not even conjecture.
    The sentence had probably included, or implied, their dismissal. They were led back through the eternal corridors to the balcony where the flying platform had been left, and were then borne through mid-air above the retrograde horizons to the roof of that edifice on which the Alcyone had been drawn down. Here they were suffered to re-enter the space-vessel, and were even permitted to close the man-hole. The guides then departed; and though a throng of the metal people passed continuously about the Alcyone, or paused to stare and confer among themselves regarding it, the earthlings were not disturbed for several hours.

    V
    T hey were extremely glad to be back in the Alcyone ; for their peregrinations in the red world had consumed the major part of a day; and they were hungry and thirsty, and were more than fatigued by their novel experiences and sensations. No food had been offered to them; and it was likely enough that no substances