Suddenly the pressure stopped. Martin’s knees sagged and he nearly fell. As though hypnotized, he walked slowly forward so that he could see more clearly the tiny cube.
The thoughts that he intercepted were thoughts of satisfaction, of accomplishment.
He stood and looked down at the metal plate. The cube was black, and it shone like polished ebony.
Then he noticed an odd thing. It appeared to be sinking into the metal plate, and the metal seemed to be floating away from it as though suddenly molten.
Even as he looked down at it, the warm and satisfied thoughts that had come to him changed abruptly to alarm. He caught scattered phrases.
“... gravity too great... metal not strong enough... reinforce quickly... full power...”
Quickly he comprehended that with the full half-million tons of weight, the tiny cube was like the point of a huge pyramid, and by pure weight it was sinking into the plate like the sharp point of a drill.
He looked and saw one of the grey-white creatures running awkwardly toward an instrument panel which it had left but a few seconds before.
He remembered the anger that he had witnessed when he had screamed faintly under the shock of the emotional images that had been placed in his mind.
Even as the creature reached a pulpy hand out toward the instrument panel, Martin Rhode threw his head back and screamed with the full power of his lungs, screamed knowing that the alien vibration would torture them, screamed with the anger and pride and courage of all outraged mankind.
The running creature stumbled, fell heavily against the instrument panel and tumbled to the floor. The massive metal plates curled slowly up on either side, and then there was an odd noise, like a cork pulled from an enormous bottle through the underside of the plate.
He screamed again, the sound tearing his throat as he watched the twisted faces of the two creatures.
When he paused to catch his breath, their thoughts came clearer to him, and in them he sensed resignation, as though someone were saying sadly and softly, “Too late, too late.” Their anger was gone. The crystals were inert. There was a dim sound, the crackling and grinding of rocks, and that diminished into the distance, into the silence. Then there was nothing...
Martin knew that the tiny cube was sinking into the earth, gaining speed with increased momentum, and not even the resources of the two alien creatures could halt its progress.
They ignored him. They turned, clothed in the light mail, and began to walk toward the ship: two towering grey-white creatures out of an obscene dream of horror. He knew that they ignored him because he was too puny, too powerless.
With a low sound in his throat he attacked them from behind, and even as he charged, he felt their thoughts, dim because they were not directed at him, thoughts of escape from this place...
One started to turn even as his hand reached out. The mail ripped like wet cardboard and his hard hand bit through the very substance of the creature, cleaving through the damp, porous flesh. His hand struck the creature in the small of the back, ripped through, staggering Martin with the lack of resistance so that he fell, bounded to his feet to see the creature he had struck moving feebly against the rock floor, his thick body fluids lemon-yellow in the glow from the ship.
Once again the anger struck him and he bounded toward the remaining one, feeling the paralyzing whine of hypersonics, feeling the sudden heat that invaded his body. But he retained the will, the power to strike one blow before he became motionless. His clenched fist punched through the chain mail, slammed deep into the abdominal cavity of the thing, and it fell back toward the place where the metal plate lay, warped and useless.
But the faceted eyes still watched him and he stood, his face slack, trying in vain to break the paralysis engendered in him by the vibrations.
The creature held a grotesque hand over the torn hole in its middle, and tried to get up. Beyond it a wisp of smoke rose from the tiny hole in the plate and an acrid, sulphurous odor filled the cavern.
There was a rumbling sound, a low roaring, in the bowels of the earth. The smoke danced grey-white in the glow of the ship. Martin Rhode stood frozen and helpless, his stained fist still clenched, his teeth meeting in the flesh of his lower lip.
The low roar was louder and the metal plate quivered, was suddenly flipped over, as by a careless giant. Martin Rhode suddenly realized that the enormously heavy pellet had plunged down into the molten heart of the planet, providing an escape channel for the lava that boiled far below.
He was hearing the yowling birth of a volcano — and he was powerless to escape. He would have to remain fixed until the increasing heat boiled the blood in his veins.
The creature was closer to the opening, and as the first tentative reddish glow seared the mouth of the orifice, it tried feebly to move away.
But with the old, familiar clarity, the thoughts arrowed into Martin’s mind. He heard the mental laughter of the thing; wild laughter; the absurd, hysterical laughter of a being defeated by a far weaker creature.
The laughter slowly ended, and in its place came something oddly like compassion.
“Go!” the thoughts said. “Go quickly!”
The hypersonic spell was suddenly broken and Martin backed slowly away, his arm shielding his face from the increasing heat.
A viscous gout of lava arced up, splattered across the dying thing, and in Martin’s mind was the scream, telephathed in naked clarity.
He raced into the ship, down the long corridor, out the rear port into the tunnel the ship had made, floating and falling while in the ship, clawing raggedly at the smooth walls in his eagerness to leave.
No cable dangled as a means of escape when he reached the bend; but the explosions had made the hole like a vast funnel. Far above him sparkled the night stars. Sobbing aloud with reaction, with new fear, he clawed his way up where the slope seemed the most gentle, ripping his hands on the jagged rock, tasting the blood in his mouth from his mangled lip. Once a foothold crumpled and he slid, spread-eagled down for a dozen feet, stopped and clawed his way up with new anxiety.
At last he rolled panting, on the ground, the deep cavity beside him. The air was hot and still. He ran along the road, stumbling, falling, getting up once more, his breath wheezing and rasping in his throat, tears of weakness filling and stinging his eyes.
It seemed to him as though he were running in a dream. His legs were leaden, heavy, dull, and the pain was a jagged skewer in his side.
He ran against something solid, collapsed, his fingertips touching the firm warmth of the barrier, the concrete of the road warm and rough against his inflamed cheek.
Slowly and painfully he got to his feet, trapped in the odd warmth behind the barrier. He strained his eyes, staring into the night, trying to see if the atomic bombs had been tried at that place, leaving dangerous radioactives behind, which might sear him even through the barrier. The earth was pitted with high explosives, but he could see none of the vitrification that would indicate the use of atomics.
A distant thud and rumble behind him made him turn sharply. A red glare was spewing up into the night, the reflected glow pinkening the clouds that were shunted aside by the invisible barrier. He guessed that he had covered nearly four miles since clambering out of the deep pit. Even at that distance he could clearly make out the glowing white-hot clots of stone thrown toward the sky.
He was weak and he leaned one hand against the barrier for support. The barrier was indubitably created and maintained by some device aboard the spaceship. The spaceship was near the heart of the inferno...