The City of Iron Cubes
by H. F. Arnold
A Weird-Scientific Serial Story
The Story Thus Far
Seven huge black iron cubes have fallen on a certain plateau in Peru, at intervals of four years. Dr. Frelinghusen, the earthquake specialist, and his friend Dana, investigate the mysterious objects from outer space, and find in one of them a beautiful girl, named Aien, and the corpse of her father. Dr. Frelinghusen deciphers the diary of her father and finds that he had been a scientist on a dying world, who had invented the iron cubes to transport his people to Earth to save them from death. The first cubes had been shot out to learn whether they could be landed successfully on Earth. During a riot when the seventh cube was to start out with a picked crew, the old man and his daughter set out alone, the inventor dying en route. A large scouting party arrives in the eighth cube, and Aien's brother is strangled in sight of Aien, Dana and the doctor. The three hide from the gray-clad invaders from the cube, but Dana, pinned in the wreckage of the cabin during an earthquake, is being slowly strangled by one of the invaders, when he hears an explosion and lapses into unconsciousness.
When I recovered my senses, I became aware that someone was bathing my forehead with water. It splashed in my eyes and ran down into my nostrils, choking me so that I gasped and sputtered.
"That's enough water: he is coming out of it," said a voice. I recognized it as that of the doctor and wondered idly where he had come from. With an effort I fought off my drowsiness and attempted to sit up. A soft hand slipped behind my neck and aided me. It was Aien; a sorry-looking and troubled Aien with tear furrows showing through the caked dust on her face.
Her tears had been for me!
The realization acted more swiftly than any tonic, and in a few minutes I was sitting up. They had relieved me of the burden of debris which pinned me down.
"It was a close call, old boy," said the doctor, and then added grimly, "but it was a closer call for someone else."
He nodded significantly at a heap of rubbish beside the spot where I had been imprisoned. From a few scraps of curiously colored cloth, I identified the heap as the body of my
