Steve had never seen the weapon I held in my palm. It was a tiny electrostatic accelerator tube, capable of flexible, high precision control of ions with energies up to twelve million electron-volts.
It was a simple thing—and unbelievably destructive. It made no sound at all. But ten seconds after I clicked it on, the desert directly in my path was glowing white hot.
Just a glow, white, dazzling for an instant. Then a dull rumbling shook the ground and the wall opposite blackened and crumbled. The heat was like a blast of incandescent helium gas from a man-made sun.
I turned and walked back to where Steve was lying.
"I didn't want to do it that way," I said. "But I had no choice. It was them—or us."
Steve seemed not to realize we were no longer in danger. There was fear in his eyes, and he was staring at me as if I'd just returned from the dead.
In a way I had. A man may die fifty deaths while counting off ten seconds in his mind.
"I'll give you something to help you sleep, Steve," I said.
It didn't take me long to dress and bind up his wound. He winced once or twice, but he never took his eyes from the mirror.