Relay gauges hummed and clicked softly; velocity and power readings registered, and nav-grid traced the fleet craft's path through the void.
Then Kane spoke. "Sires, as you can see, the spacetender in which my drive unit has been installed is now proceeding at what is usually considered to be topmost velocity and with what would normally be maximum power output for such a craft." He could feel his voice waver at first, and then with the sound of it and the reassuring feeling of the control studs beneath his fingertips, it strengthened, became firm. And he knew they were listening. Listening as though it were the Gentech himself who spoke. Then he summoned up all his courage. "I will now," he said, "accelerate the tender to treble its present speed, while increasing power output by approximately six-fold. If you will watch the central group of gauges carefully, please."
He jammed his finger down on a white, diamond shaped stud, and his breath clogged in his throat.
The screen followed the tender's course faithfully. The gauges chuckled and hummed.
And then the blackness was torn open with a coruscating, soundless flash, and the tender was in an instant nothing but a white cloud of rapidly dissipating atoms!
No!... No!... No!
There was no sound from behind him, but he knew that the huge chamber was quickly and silently emptying.