The Project Gutenberg EBook of Walls of Acid, by Henry Hasse

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Title: Walls of Acid

Author: Henry Hasse

Release Date: February 10, 2009 [EBook #28045]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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_Five millenniums have passed since the loathsome Termans were
eliminated from the world of Diskra.... But what of the other
planets?_

WALLS OF ACID

_BY HENRY HASSE_

Braanol stirred, throbbed sluggishly once, then lay quiescent as his
mental self surged up from the deeps of non-entity. And gradually he
came to know that someone had entered the room. His _room_, far beneath
the city.

Now he could feel the vibra-currents through the liquids of the huge
tanks where he had lain somnolent for untold aeons. It was pleasant,
caressing. For a moment he floated there, enjoying to the utmost this
strange sensation as the renewed thought-life-force set his every
convolution to pulsing.

"To be once more aware! O gloriously aware!" the thought came fierce and
vibrant. "Once more they have wakened me--but how long has it been?"
Then curiously: "And what can they want this time?"

The huge brain was alert now, with a supernal sense of keening.
Tentatively he sent out a thought-potential that encompassed the room.

"They are afraid!" he sensed. "Two have entered here, and they are
afraid of me. I shall remedy that!"

Braanol lowered his thought-potential to one-eighth of one magnitude,
and felt his mind contact theirs. "Approach, my children," he said
kindly. "You have nothing to fear from me! I take it you are the
imperial messengers sent by her Supreme Magnificence, the Empress
Alaazar?"

He felt the fright slip from their minds. But they were startled.

"The Empress Uldulla reigns now, fourth in the Royal line," came the
thought. "Empress Alaazar died long ago!"

"I am truly grieved!" Braanol flashed to them. "Alaazar--may she rest in
peace--did not neglect me! How well I remember her interest in the
stories I could tell, stories of the Diskra of old