SIMULTANEOUSLY I WAS aware that Shorty and Taro were smashing at the control apparatus. It crackled, tinkled like breaking glass, with a huge flash of colored light and sparks that sent Shorty and Taro reeling backward, dazed so that they did not see what was happening to me. Then they were up, at it again, hurling broken fragments of the controls at the nearby grids, tubes and prisms. And in that same second, the multi-colored flash spread—deranged—weird current. Like burning powder-trains it leaped everywhere around the grotto. Puffs, sparks of fountain-glare, the hissing, whining, screeching of breaking machines....
On the floor I struggled with Ratan on top of me. He had no gun—just a long, thin knife with polished blade that glittered as he tried to thrust it into my throat. My own k
