'Those tentacles of light!’ Travis was yelling thinly in my ear. 'They must run down from this Earth-Brain like muscles through all earth!’

('The Earth-Brain' by Edmond Hamilton)

...The light-tentacle drew us closer to the Earth-Brain! On you picture that scene? The great ovoid of light holding us with one of its tentacles, inspecting us? Yes, the Earth-Brain was examining us as a man might take and examine three tiny parasites or insects whom he had not noticed upon his body until they became too bold!

And still upon us, through us, beat the Earth-Brain’s will! The impact of that will was tangible, overwhelming. It seemed partly to replace, to usurp, my own will and mind. It seemed that I was not only Clark Landon, but also part of the Earth-Brain that held me...

It seemed that I, the Earth-Brain now and not Clark Landon, sat here in this brain-chamber at the top of my earthbody. Poised here, I was as aware of all my great body as a man is of his arms and legs. For down into my earth-body ran the tentacles of light that extended to the uttermost parts of earth, the muscular system by which I moved my earth-body at will...

And I, the Earth-Brain, and my great earth-body, were not stationary but moving! My great body was racing at awful speed through vast leagues of infinite space! Far off across those immensities of space I was aware of other living earths, other planets, some larger and some smaller than I, but each living in the same vast way as I lived, each with its own great Brain!