He leaped; came up short as Jasper Jones clawed at his arm with aged
hands. The old man babbled, "The machine is our only chance."
Randolph was roaring in triumph, "I have your girl, Thorssen. Come out
of there or I'll give her a disintegrator pellet. Ha! You didn't watch
me long enough, Thorssen. I missed the rocks--went into the water. It
carried me under the temple, to stone steps. They led me--here! You
hear me, Thorssen? Come out of there!"
"I hear you. I'm coming."
Instead he turned and looked at the wiring terminals where Jasper Jones
toiled, his hands a blur of movement and his white hair wet with sweat.
The old man's panting made a harsh sound in the fetid air.
"We almost through?" Grim whispered.
"Almost ... just these, now ... another turn to tighten them--there!"
A switch with a glittering red handle was a foot above Jones' bent
head. Grim went for it in a flying leap. His hands came up and the
switch went down and--
Hell broke loose.
* * * * *
Sound welled up, pitched high and keening and almost inaudible. What
was heard, was jarring and maddening. It took a man's nerve-ends
out and scratched on them until his entire body was dancing. Grim
stood shivering, trying to lift his hands to shelter his eardrums;
discovering this his arms were jumping free of his will.
He whispered, "I can't do it. I can't turn it off." Something rolled
against his leg. It was old Jasper Jones, eyes rolling in his head, a
bubbly white froth at his mouth.
Grim's knees shook. They went in different directions and he pitched to
the metal floor. His body danced a weird saraband against the metal.
He thought, 'If something doesn't happen, we'll all go _mad_!' He knew
that sound could crush them; that this sound that was jumbling their
brains was enough for that, given the time to build itself.
His hands shook. His body quivered. His brain throbbed, and blackness
swept down and blinded him.
* * * * *
The sound was gone. Someone was shaking him by the shoulder, urgently.
Grim opened tired eyelids. Tlokine bent over him, fright making her red
nails dig deep into his shoulder.
Grim said words, but he did not hear them. He put hands to his ears,
found them plugged with cotton. The sound came through, a little, but
it was muffled, ineffective.
He got up and took the wad of cotton that Tlokine still held and forced
two balls of it into old Jasper Jones' ears. After a while the old man
sat up and looked at them.
Grim said, even though he knew they could not hear him, "I'm going up
and tie up Black Randolph for once and all. Then we'll turn this thing
off and parley with the others."
The pirate was in even worse state than Grim had been; he had been
nearer to the vast loudspeakers, had felt the numbing shock of those
sound-waves. Like a man in water, close to an explosion, his brain and
lungs had hemorrhaged. His chest was bloated, swollen. Grim covered
him, turned to the lovely Althaya; covered her quickly, too.
He turned off the machine and stood in a silence that was almost as
dreadful as the sound had been. Jasper Jones and Tlokine came up the
floor opening, removing their earplugs.
"They got it the worst. They were right on top of the high pressure
waves coming from the speaker," Grim said, gesturing at the covered
bodies. "The others, outside--they were further away, as we were.
They'll be all right, in a little while."