While Burke cringed, the radiance seemed to fade a little. The earth-shaking roar diminished also. The shrill wail struck a slightly less ear-piercing note.
Another moment, and Burke dared to squint skyward once more.
What he saw made the hair stand up along the back of his neck.
For off there, to the southeast, a great spray of light radiated out from Mount Lasithi. Before his very eyes, the whole crest seemed to split asunder. Rocky buttresses crumbled. Great crags and ledges split away.
Up from among them rose a huge, flattened, metallic cone—the blue-white ship at which Burke had stared in awe brief hours before.
Light pulsed from it now, as if it were a miniature sun. Rock fell away from the craft in avalanches as it broke free of the mountain.
Now the light drew into a single, broad, fan-shaped shaft that thrust down from the ship's base to the rugged terrain of the shattered mountain below. The thing began to climb, faster and faster.
Then, as it gained altitude, it swung round in a tremendous, wheeling circle ... swung round, and then straightened, and lanced earthward once more, straight for the flaming tumult that was Knossos.
Burke threw himself flat in the dirt.