Over goes the boulder lightly as if hollow. Losing its rod gravitation it flies off toward the earth and disappears (dashing on its surface—an aerolite).
Ere they select another we enter their midst. Not seeing us within, they grasp the globe and roll it over. Seeing a debris marring its shining surface they pound it off. This removed from the fastening Savant swings it open, Pandora-box-like, as off they rush. Winding carefully his breath tubes about him, Savant takes tools, solutions, etc., and stepping out carefully inspects the boulder’s surface. (Are they the dust on the rod?) Selecting one he quickly works. Indents and excavates a large round cavity, disclosing a glittering black diamond interior, disappearing inside as he works. I, curiously steer the globe to the entrance. The inside smooth he places a block in the center, obvious as rest to the globe which I steer to and stop on, seeing myself an equal distance from the interior sides. Satisfied, he proceeds to throw a solution over the latter, which brings out a picture or reflection from the globe-disc, camera-like. Is the picture the interior of the earth? I scan it curiously.
After the ice border (around the north pole) land with one only vegetation, a white cactus. White is the color of the whole inside except some blackened spots. The cactus skin is clothing of a people who appear, who eat the pulp and work the thorns into houses and into ships as water, first shallow, deeper grows; and again into forts upon the cacti brunches growing up out of the water, thorn protected from sea monsters. Then these last range alone.
A great blur where we passed the light, more sea includes the lower half.
I exclaim to myself in bitter mood, is this all!
I am quite disenchanted. Is this our brother earth man? So flat; more wide than tall, who cannot lift his feet on account of his centrifugal location; thorn artists; skewering hair, umbrella like. Nesting on trees as high as Jack’s beanstalk. A shade outside draws us hastily there. How came this emerald lawn with ruby roses, sapphire lilies, made of the gem rock centers.
The shade increasing relieves my eyes to see distinctly. As the tiny artists finish their work by sprinkling the sparkling dust over themselves and resume their jubilee racket. Suddenly I get an odd sense that they are different from ordinary human beings. Grace in every motion. Fair flowing hair; deep-dell gray eyes are of plain human being species. Still I notice strongly a difference as they gather now and hurriedly consult. Children and adults. Are the latter all mothers or fathers? I cannot tell.
Before solution dawns I look up and find the moon is approaching close over. Is it whence the unique mites have their origin?
Still in the globe, my attention turns wholly to it, for the globe-lense shows it distinctly enough to read its surface. Its mountains, valleys, and—yes, certainly, human cities grow upon my vision. So interested am I, I forget to look for appurtenances or attachment fixtures, in my new custom of practical demonstration.
As I get an important discovery of inventive construction in a certain locality straight in my mind, it is almost knocked out, as now, directly over, I perceive a central light inside the satellite. It is a taper-kind and in disturbance. A burst of blackness drops from it and down toward me. Keenly alarmed, the tots are more so, as they, run and fall down and dig faces and hands beneath the boulder debris.