the Palace of Green Porcelain in Wells's The Time Machine. . . . The walls around three sides of the bottom of this place are lined with tall spindly cabinets, glass display cases of a wildly improbable design. Each one consists of fan-shaped shelves that fold out from a central axis and lock into place on different levels from one another. [Chaney blows.] Dust. Dust on everything. But not particularly thick. And on these shelves—which have the fragile warmth of mother-of-pearl—there are specimens of various kinds of implements and artwork.
[A click, like stone on stone.] I'm holding a statue that's about as tall as my forearm is long. It represents an Asadi male, full-maned and virile. . . . But the statue depicts him with a kind of cape around his shoulders. A garment, if you can imagine that. Very strange. . . . Here's an iron knife, with a wooden handle carved so that the top resembles the skull of an early terrestrial hominid. An Asadi skull, no doubt. . . . The statue's definitely an anomaly here; everything else in the cabinet looks like a weapon or a heavy tool.
I'm going across the chamber, past an open corridor leading off down the pagoda's western wing and into darkness. [Footfalls.
Echoes.] I'm going toward the one wall in here without any of these spindly cabinets against it. . . . The Flying Asadi Brothers are still up there, more rigid than the statue I just picked up. I'm passing directly beneath them now, beneath the iron ring and its energy globes. There's a huge circular pattern on the polished flagstones I'm walking upon. Inside this circle I feel I'm trespassing on sacred territory. . . . Ah, I'm out of the circle and heading toward the horn-colored wall beyond the helical stairway. There are no cabinets on that wall. Instead. . .
Damn this light! this hollowness! Let me get closer. ... On the wall are what appear to be rows upon rows of tiny plastic wafers. Rows of wafers hung from a couple thousand silver rods protruding for several centimeters at right angles to the wall. . . . The wall's just one big, elegant pegboard glowing like a monstrous fingernail with a bonfire behind it. The rows of these wafers—cassettes, cigarette cases, matchboxes—whatever you want to call 'em— begin at about waist level and go up two or three hands higher than I can reach. Asadi height, I suppose.
[For three or four minutes only Chaney's breathing can be heard. Then, slowly]: Interesting. I think I've figured this out, Eisen. I want you to pay attention. . . . I've just unfastened this intricate, ah, wingnut, say, from the end of one of these protruding rods and removed the first of several tiny cassettes hanging from it. . . . Wafer was a serendipitous word choice, because these little boxes are as thin as two or three transistor templates welded together. The faces of the things are about seven centimeters square. . . . I've counted fifty of them hanging from this one rod, and, as I said, they're probably three thousand rods on this wall. That's about 150,000 cassettes altogether, and this section of the pagoda, more than likely, is just a display area.
But I want to describe the one I've got in my hand, tell you how it works. Maybe, if I can restrain myself, I'll let you draw your own conclusions. Okay, then. In the center of this wafer—which, by the way, does seem to be made of plastic—there's an inset circle of glass with a diameter of about a centimeter, maybe a little more.
A bulb or an eye, call it. Beneath this eye there's a rectangular tab that's flush with the surface of the cassette. Above the bulb, directly under the hole through which the wall rod passes, there's a band containing a series of different-colored dots. Some of the dots touch each other, some don't. The spacing or lack of it between dots probably has significance.
And here's how this little crackerbox works. [Chancy chuckles.] Oh, Eisen, don't you wish Morrell were here instead of me? I do, too—I really do. . . . It's
[A click, like stone on stone.] I'm holding a statue that's about as tall as my forearm is long. It represents an Asadi male, full-maned and virile. . . . But the statue depicts him with a kind of cape around his shoulders. A garment, if you can imagine that. Very strange. . . . Here's an iron knife, with a wooden handle carved so that the top resembles the skull of an early terrestrial hominid. An Asadi skull, no doubt. . . . The statue's definitely an anomaly here; everything else in the cabinet looks like a weapon or a heavy tool.
I'm going across the chamber, past an open corridor leading off down the pagoda's western wing and into darkness. [Footfalls.
Echoes.] I'm going toward the one wall in here without any of these spindly cabinets against it. . . . The Flying Asadi Brothers are still up there, more rigid than the statue I just picked up. I'm passing directly beneath them now, beneath the iron ring and its energy globes. There's a huge circular pattern on the polished flagstones I'm walking upon. Inside this circle I feel I'm trespassing on sacred territory. . . . Ah, I'm out of the circle and heading toward the horn-colored wall beyond the helical stairway. There are no cabinets on that wall. Instead. . .
Damn this light! this hollowness! Let me get closer. ... On the wall are what appear to be rows upon rows of tiny plastic wafers. Rows of wafers hung from a couple thousand silver rods protruding for several centimeters at right angles to the wall. . . . The wall's just one big, elegant pegboard glowing like a monstrous fingernail with a bonfire behind it. The rows of these wafers—cassettes, cigarette cases, matchboxes—whatever you want to call 'em— begin at about waist level and go up two or three hands higher than I can reach. Asadi height, I suppose.
[For three or four minutes only Chaney's breathing can be heard. Then, slowly]: Interesting. I think I've figured this out, Eisen. I want you to pay attention. . . . I've just unfastened this intricate, ah, wingnut, say, from the end of one of these protruding rods and removed the first of several tiny cassettes hanging from it. . . . Wafer was a serendipitous word choice, because these little boxes are as thin as two or three transistor templates welded together. The faces of the things are about seven centimeters square. . . . I've counted fifty of them hanging from this one rod, and, as I said, they're probably three thousand rods on this wall. That's about 150,000 cassettes altogether, and this section of the pagoda, more than likely, is just a display area.
But I want to describe the one I've got in my hand, tell you how it works. Maybe, if I can restrain myself, I'll let you draw your own conclusions. Okay, then. In the center of this wafer—which, by the way, does seem to be made of plastic—there's an inset circle of glass with a diameter of about a centimeter, maybe a little more.
A bulb or an eye, call it. Beneath this eye there's a rectangular tab that's flush with the surface of the cassette. Above the bulb, directly under the hole through which the wall rod passes, there's a band containing a series of different-colored dots. Some of the dots touch each other, some don't. The spacing or lack of it between dots probably has significance.
And here's how this little crackerbox works. [Chancy chuckles.] Oh, Eisen, don't you wish Morrell were here instead of me? I do, too—I really do. . . . It's
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