With the same startling abruptness there stood erect, where but a moment before they had seethed, a little figure, grotesque; a weirdly humorous, a vaguely terrifying foot-high shape, squared and angled and pointed and ANIMATE--as though a child should build from nursery blocks a fantastic shape which abruptly is filled with throbbing life.
A troll from the kindergarten! A kobold of the toys!
Only for a second it stood, then began swiftly to change, melting with quicksilver quickness from one outline into another as square and triangle and spheres changed places.
Their shiftings were like the transformations one sees within a kaleidoscope.And in each vanishing form was the suggestion of unfamiliar harmonies, of a subtle, a transcendental geometric art as though each swift shaping were a symbol, a WORD--Euclid's problems given volition!
Geometry endowed with consciousness!
It ceased.Then the cubes drew one upon the other until they formed a pedestal nine inches high; up this pillar rolled the larger globe, balanced itself upon the top; the five spheres followed it, clustered like a ring just below it.The other cubes raced up, clicked two by two on the outer arc of each of the five balls; at the ends of these twin blocks a pyramid took its place, tipping each with a point.
The Lilliputian fantasy was now a pedestal of cubes surmounted by a ring of globes from which sprang a star of five arms.
The spheres began to revolve.Faster and faster they spun around the base of the crowning globe; the arms became a disc upon which tiny brilliant sparks appeared, clustered, vanished only to reappear in greater number.
The troll swept toward me.It GLIDED.The finger of panic touched me.I sprang aside, and swift as light it followed, seemed to poise itself to leap.
"Drop it!" It was Ruth's cry.
But, before I could let fall the pyramid I had forgotten was in my hand, the little figure touched me and a paralyzing shock ran through me.My fingers clenched, locked.I1
The little figure paused.Its whirling disc shifted from the horizontal plane on which it spun.It was as though it cocked its head to look up at me--and again I had the sense of innumerable eyes peering at me.It did not seem menacing--its attitude was inquisitive, waiting; almost as though it had asked for something and wondered why I did not let it have it.The shock still held me rigid, although a tingle in every nerve told me of returning force.
The disc tilted back to place, bent toward me again.Iheard a shout; heard a bullet strike the pigmy that now clearly menaced; heard the bullet ricochet without the slightest effect upon it.Dick leaped beside me, raised a foot and kicked at the thing.There was a flash of light and upon the instant he crashed down as though struck by a giant hand, lay sprawling and inert upon the floor.
There was a scream from Ruth; there was softly sibilant rustling all about her.I saw her leap the crevice, drop on her knees beside Drake.
There was movement on the flagging where she stood.
