"
I, too, saw; but something else I saw that Mors Kajak did not; in
my mind's eye I saw a buried chamber whose walls were lined with
strange instruments and devices.
In the center of the chamber was a long table, and before it sat a
little, pop-eyed old man counting his money; but, plainest of all,
I saw upon the wall a great switch with a small magnet inlaid within
the surface of its black handle.
Then I glanced out at the fast-approaching fleet. In five minutes
that mighty armada of the skies would be bent and worthless scrap,
lying at the base of the shaft beyond the city's wall, and yellow
hordes would be loosed from another gate to rush out upon the few
survivors stumbling blindly down through the mass of wreckage;
then the apts would come. I shuddered at the thought, for I could
vividly picture the whole horrible scene.
Quick have I always been to decide and act. The impulse that moves
me and the doing of the thing seem simultaneous; for if my mind
goes through the tedious formality of reasoning, it must be a
subconscious act of which I am not objectively aware. Psychologists
tell me that, as the subconscious does not reason, too close a
scrutiny of my mental activities might prove anything but flattering;
but be that as it may, I have often won success while the thinker
would have been still at the endless task of comparing various
judgments.
And now celerity of action was the prime essential to the success
of the thing that I had decided upon.
Pages:
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190