My blood went cold. The drum was no longer at the top of the incline. It was half-way down and moving faster.
I shook Chetzisky off and started for the ramp, but he threw out his foot and tripped me. Sprawled out on the ground I looked up to see the drum swiftly moving towards the trigger mechanism that would catapult it into the head of the vein. I couldn't stop it now; time had run out on the world.
And in that black moment when the earth trembled on the rim of nothingness, the conditioned reflexes that I had acquired in four years of football asserted themselves. I was on my feet rushing madly and then I was sailing through the air. The breath was knocked out of me as I landed on the ramp. Something hard struck my side and kept crushing me.
At first I felt nothing. Suddenly a cold sweat broke out all over me. Chetzisky was beside me now, screaming at me and pulling me.
"You'll kill yourself," he kept shrieking.
I fought him off. I couldn't let him pull me off the ramp. Only my body stood between the earth and its annihilation.
"Don't be a fool; let me help you," he pleaded. He was a transformed being now; no longer the mad-man destroying a planet but a man trying to save the life of another human being. It was too late for such sentiment now. I didn't want to be saved.
He came at me again. I got one arm loose and pushed a fist at him. He went reeling backwards. He changed his tactics and started to pull me by the feet. I couldn't get at him. My body started to move. I clutched fiercely to one of the ramp rails.
He came around in front of me to loosen my grip. I pushed him off. He picked up a stone and came at me again. He meant to rescue me, like it or not. He raised the stone to knock me unconscious.
A shot rang out. Chetzisky sagged forward and dropped to the ground.