For a long moment Ross stood unmoving. Then, as the last echo of the others' clumping footsteps died and the darkness closed in on taut, vibrant silence, he turned. His face was pale and drawn, his breathing shallow, his mouth a thin, grim line.
Moving down the aisle cat-silent, he groped his way to the place his earlier foe had died beside the stacked plastidrums of steron.
Steron, with its deadly methane fumes, and high combustibility, and flaring, 4000-degree heat.
Ross' lips twisted. Dragging out one of the drums, he jerked savagely at the opener tab.
The cap tore away. With a momentary faint hiss of gas escaping, steron fumes spurted forth in a choking, all-enveloping rush.
Ross grinned mirthlessly. With swift efficiency, he dragged out a second drum and opened it also. Then a third ... a fourth....
Turning this last tank on its side, he rolled it full-tilt down the aisle towards the offices, a trail of fumes and liquid spilling out in its wake.
Now, drawing back into a cross-aisle, Ross flicked his flamer and tossed it out onto the snake-like steron trail.
The fumes caught even before the flamer struck the floor. With a roar like the gush of a power hose, fire leaped back to the three open drums.
The explosion as they ignited sprayed flame in a mad starburst that illumined the whole central section of the warehouse. In seconds a thunderous holocaust swirled roof-high.