Dana Harrod, our narrator, tells how he is summoned to a remote mountain in Peru by his old instructor, Professor Frelinghusen. This venerable scholar is one of the world’s foremost volcanologists. He has been gone for three years studying something mysterious in the Andes. Dana finds a guide, who abandons him once he has arrived at the strange plateau where Frelinghusen is hiding. On that strange flatland rests the giant metal cubes that give the story its title. Once Dana finds the professor and settles in, he learns more about the cubes. Frelinghusen has determined that they arrive every four years, and each time they land with less force. They form a circle of cubes, seven so far, with one last spot for an eighth. The professor thinks the steel boxes are test vehicles for an alien race that is coming for Earth. This leads the two men to looking at the last cube. Inside they find a glassed-in chamber with two people inside, one a beautiful woman, the other a dead man. Dana breaks open the glass vault, risking either being poisoned by the escaping atmosphere or killing the woman inside with ours. She survives. The dead man is her father, who has been embalmed. The professor takes a strange book, written in an alien language, while Dana carries out the woman who has fainted. The woman, who is named Aien, is, of course, gorgeous. Dana falls instantly in love with her. She learns English quickly. Between her information and the book, which strangely, Frelinghusen can read, we piece together Aien’s story…
Description Dana Harrod, our narrator, tells how he is summoned to a remote mountain in Peru by his old instructor, Professor Frelinghusen. This venerable scholar is one of the world’s foremost volcanologists. He has been gone for three years studying something mysterious in the Andes. Dana finds a guide, who abandons him once he has arrived at the strange plateau where Frelinghusen is hiding. On that strange flatland rests the giant metal cubes that give the story its title. Once Dana finds the professor and settles in, he learns more about the cubes. Frelinghusen has determined that they arrive every four years, and each time they land with less force. They form a circle of cubes, seven so far, with one last spot for an eighth. The professor thinks the steel boxes are test vehicles for an alien race that is coming for Earth. This leads the two men to looking at the last cube. Inside they find a glassed-in chamber with two people inside, one a beautiful woman, the other a dead man. Dana breaks open the glass vault, risking either being poisoned by the escaping atmosphere or killing the woman inside with ours. She survives. The dead man is her father, who has been embalmed. The professor takes a strange book, written in an alien language, while Dana carries out the woman who has fainted. The woman, who is named Aien, is, of course, gorgeous. Dana falls instantly in love with her. She learns English quickly. Between her information and the book, which strangely, Frelinghusen can read, we piece together Aien’s story…
