Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson

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Elekilpomagtistzen

 

3 The Cause of the Delay in the Falling of the Ship Karnak

3.65

“You, your Right Reverence, have condescended to remark very justly that the former ships were very inconvenient and cumbersome.

3.65

“Yes, they were then, indeed, very complicated and cumbersome. I too remember them very well. There is an enormous difference between the ships of that time and the ships now.

3.65

“In our youth all such ships both for intersystem and for interplanetary communication were still run on the cosmic substance ‘Elekilpomagtistzen,’ which is a totality consisting of two separate parts of the omnipresent Okidanokh.

“And it was to obtain this totality that just those numerous materials were necessary which the former ships had to carry.

3.65

“But these ships did not remain in use long after you flew from these parts, having soon thereafter been replaced by ships of the system of Saint Venoma.”

 

4 The Law of Falling

4.67-8

“This special construction had the appearance of a large enclosure, all the walls of which were made of a special material something like glass.

“Then to every side of that large enclosure were fitted things like ‘shutters’ of a material impervious to the rays of the cosmic substance ‘Elekilpomagtistzen,’ and these shutters, although closely fitted to the walls of the said enclosure, could yet freely slide in every direction.

“Within the enclosure was placed a special ‘battery,’ generating and giving this same substance ‘Elekilpomagtistzen.’

4.68

“The whole secret lay in this, that when the rays of ‘Elekilpomagtistzen’ were made to pass through this special glass, then in all the space they reached, everything usually composing the atmosphere itself of planets, such as ‘air,’ every kind of ‘gas,’ ‘fog,’ and so on, was destroyed. This part of space became indeed absolutely empty and had neither resistance nor pressure, so that, if even an infant-being pushed this enormous structure, it would move forward as easily as a feather.

4.68

“To the outer side of this peculiar structure there were attached appliances similar to wings, which were set in motion by means of this same substance ‘Elekilpomagtistzen,’ and served to give the impetus to move all this enormous construction in the required direction.