The plane settled down beside him. "Oh, yes, sir," the voice
apologized. "We saw you running and--"
"Quick, take me to the drill," Chandler said.
"Yes, sir," said the voice.
The verti-plane floated down beside the massive control ring and
Chandler, followed by two armed soldiers, raced through the main doors.
"Halt."
Guards surrounded them.
"Has Kotenko been here?" asked Chandler.
"Yes, sir," replied one of the guards recognizing Chandler. "He took a
team of technicians to the Gismo."
"Follow me," Chandler ordered, and pushed through the inner door.
Hesitantly, the guards followed.
* * * * *
Down in the basin, Chandler saw the yellow glow of a work light.
Figures were silhouetted against it. He took the spiral stairs two at a
time. The soldiers clambered down behind him.
"Stay where you are, Chandler," said the voice of Kotenko, his stocky
figure back-lighted at the base of the drill.
"What're you doing, Kotenko?" Chandler demanded,
"Removing the X-factor capsule."
"You're tampering with government property," Chandler said, primarily
to orientate the confused guards.
"I am not going to permit the drill to go down there with the
X-factor," Kotenko said firmly.
"It'll never get beyond the thousand-mile level," Chandler warned,
moving toward the shadowy figure.
"I am armed," Kotenko warned.
* * * * *
Chandler stopped. Marta, clad in an overcoat, came down the stairs.
Several others followed.
"Those techs will never do it now that they know the situation,"
Chandler said, moving still closer.
"My dear Dr. Chandler, they are citizens of the Soviet. They will do as
I say."
"Put down your gun," the soldier at Chandler's side ordered.
"I have already set up the drill for descent," Kotenko said. His shadow
hand touched a black lever on a portable field control unit. "As soon
as the X-factor capsule is withdrawn, down it goes."
"But you can never maintain control without a full crew," Marta said.
"I have crew enough," Kotenko told her. "Without the X-factor, complete
control is not so important."
Chandler leaped for Kotenko, but the Russian's gun blasted white flame.
A searing pain ripped into Chandler's chest. He fell to his knees.
The soldier's rifle cracked and Kotenko's silhouette crumbled against
the control lever. Electro-mechanisms whirred and the drill suddenly
plunged into the depths of the Earth, carrying most of Kotenko's crew
with it.
"Good God!" someone cried.
Marta was kneeling beside Chandler, tears streaming down her face.
"Paul!" she sobbed. "Oh, Paul!"
Chandler could taste the warm saltiness of blood in his mouth. "Get the
control crew here--quick," he gasped.
Someone moved for the stairs while someone else leaped for the field
control unit.
Chandler's foggy mind touched reality for brief moments, condensing
time into a montage. A doctor was working on him, then shaking his head
at the sobbing Marta. Lights were thrown on and control posts manned.
Someone yelled, "Throw in force fields behind it!" And all the time
Chandler's chest pulsed with pain.
"Can't stop it!" someone shouted. Then chaos broke loose; men were
running, blindly bumping into one another.
Even though few of them knew quite what could happen, they wanted to
get as far away from the hole as they could.
Marta was rocking Paul gently in her arms and crooning something
Swedish. The ground trembled under them, then lurched violently.
Sheets of broken plate glass rained down on them from the control ring
windows. Chandler knew the same thing was happening everywhere as the
shock waves from the drill reverberated around the globe.
He looked around. They were alone on the basin floor except for the
contorted body of Kotenko. Paul looked up at Marta.
"How--much--time?"
Marta, her face close to his, smiled faintly. "No more time for you and
me." Her eyes were dry.
A sound as of millions of giant rocks grating together welled up from
the bowels of the Earth. He was looking into Marta's eyes when suddenly
everything vaporized into blinding white heat.
"Clench your fingers."
"Blink your eyes."
* * * * *
The short man in the gleaming laboratory was leaning over Chandler. "We
did our best," he said.
The pain was gone in Chandler's chest. "Marta," he called.
"I'm afraid she's gone," the tall man said. "She and the entire Earth."