When the slab was mostly cut around, some inner seal gave way and air sucked loudly into the crack. With a wrenching sound, the slab tore loose. It tilted under some power of its own, and lowered itself to the floor.
Lights, harshly angled and dramatic, flashed on in the small room beyond. It was bare except for the stone platform on the floor, and what rested upon it.
Mechanically, Craig stepped in and moved aside to make room for the others. Brulieres went to the opposite side of the platform and Dientes crouched beside him. Rabar stood hesitantly in the doorway.
The creature was larger than a man and like nothing earthly; many-limbed, built as if for a higher gravity. There was no apparent decomposition or dessication. The atmosphere of the chamber had evidently been chosen to preserve.
There was still a pungent, half-unpleasant smell, being rapidly drawn away through ducts in the ceiling. There was a face of a sort, and two closed eyes. The face was recognizably strong. The thing might have been called ugly, but Craig found a handsomeness about it too. He recognized the drama with which the body was arranged and lighted, and somehow for this last small vanity he loved the creature even more.
Dientes clutched at the priest's robe. "It is a lie, Padre!" And, as the priest remained silent, Dientes turned desperate eyes to Craig. "Mother of God! Will no one say it is a lie?"
Craig felt emotionally depleted. Inside him were a sick regret and a hollowness where something had died, but cold reason remained. If there is no God, he thought, we're just intelligent animals, and we're free to live by our wits. If there is no God, then there is no Devil either.
He pondered that ... and decided with grim amusement that there was Devil enough.
And, in any event, there were needs and desires, friends and enemies. He stepped swiftly around the alien and took the heat-weapon from the priest's limp fingers. He turned toward Rabar, who was (beyond any worthwhile doubt) an enemy, and who was standing in the doorway with an annoying mockery in his eyes. Of course he's happy, Craig thought; he's a Bolshevik agent and an atheist. There'll be damned little religion anywhere, now.