The funnel in the room was calling me, not in its customary strident tones, but with a muffled, intimate appeal.
David was at the Bureau, and Elizabeth had gone out on one of her infrequent journeys. It was as if the voice knew I was alone, for it had never spoken to me before, and had never called in that particular tone of intimacy and understanding.
“Arnold, I am your friend,” the voice continued. “You will come to no good in the Strangers’ House. Go out quietly by the external elevator at once and proceed toward the Temple, where everything will be explained to you.”
My bewilderment changed to intense expectancy. The Temple was, I knew, the domed building that seemed to dominate London; I had seen it from afar each time David and I had gone out together, and each time David had seemed sedulously to avoid approaching it, proceeding and returning in a circuitous manner.
“See for yourself the heritage of the new civilization,” the voice continued. “Do not allow yourself to be made a prisoner by those who wish you no good. Go out at once by the external elevator. Turn to the right. Walk slowly. Look about you. Your friends are watching you.”
I went out and descended the building by the external elevator. A minute later I was upon the traveling street, feeling like a runaway schoolboy, and animated by an intense desire to solve the secret that lay before me.
Presently, remembering that I was to proceed slowly, I had the curiosity to step off the traveling platform into a large, open space on which a crowd was seated. I took my post beside one of the funnels that surrounded it, and saw that I was at one of the moving picture performances. Spelling out the title upon the curtain, I understood that news from Russia was to be given.
There was none of that blur of vision which was a common defect of the old-fashioned pictures, and the words spoken from the funnels synchronized so perfectly with the actions on the screen that the illusion was complete. Upon the parapet of the fortress reared by our besieging troops I saw machines with conical tops, faced with large, glow-painted shields. As I watched, there rushed across the field of vision a number of men of the most degraded, savage aspect, armed with long swords, which they brandished furiously, while the funnels yelled like demons.
“These are the Russian savages, filthy defectives who are attacking the army of the Federation,” announced the funnel at my side, in such a personal way that I started, imagining for a moment that someone had spoken to me.
As the horde neared the fortress a short command was uttered, and from each of the conical machines a glare of light shot forth. The Russians wilted and crumpled up. They did not fall; they were rather consumed like lead dropped into fire, and the next line wilted too as the Ray caught them, tumbling in charred masses upon the bodies of their companions. Higher and higher rose the dreadful pyramid of mortality, until the field was empty.