See here. That big machine over there is a—well, that's hopeless. I'll try to break this down in one-syllable words. Orbish words, I hope.
That big thing sends up rays like beams of sunlight but of different intensity, color, wave length, et cetera—it sends up beams that counteract, I mean work against, destroy, other beams. Now the buttons are held up there by forces in diamonds, taken out by these globes of yours and used to hold up their homes, ships, saucers, buttons. The beams from that big thing will destroy the diamond beams and make the buttons fall.
There's just one thing. We have to get the machine, the thing, out of this cave and onto the surface of the earth. You catch my meaning? It has to have sky above it before it can work against the button-beams. Yes, much like your globes' telepathy (what a word to survive, when "glass" and "electricity" didn't) and hypnosis fails when rock gets in the way.
Can you get it to the surface? Talk it over, Mink. It can give you plenty of help ... if you can get it up there. I'll just sit here, if it's okay with you, and let my imagination boggle at what you've told me.
I have the most confounded urgent feeling that this is a visit I'm making in a time machine, and that tomorrow I'll go back to good old 2084. Johnnie, Johnnie, wake up! You're here!
God!
CHAPTER XIII
The Mink he takes his pick and gun,
He ranges through the towns;
His force is miners, trappers, thieves—
And a girl in gentry-gown.
The rebels ride on stolen nags,
They travel on shanks' mare;
The gore's awash, the heads they roll,
All in the torches' glare.