They had no way of knowing whether the rays stopped at the screen, exactly. They might go on and on. And if they ate through metal, releasing the electrons that composed it—they might eat through the universe!
Jonathan shuddered and looked around him.
He knew his course, now. But to prove it—
He had to go through the flames!
"You proclaimed that the winner of the mental monomachy would go through the flames, Shar Bytu," he said. "As winner, and as representative of Earth, I claim that right."
Shar Bytu looked at him and his eyes were like flecks of cold moonlight. Suddenly, they twinkled.
"The right is yours, Earthling. And something tells me that you may, at long last, be the one to succeed. I read it in your mind. Yes, your theory is a good one. To think that menace came from Earth. From little, uncivilized, barbaric Earth."
He waddled away, his ponderous reptilian head moving from side to side.
Adatha Za pressed her hot cheeks against Jonathan's chest. Her voice was low, troubled: "How will you fight the flames, Jonathan? What weapon is there that can destroy them?"
"No weapon under all the stars and all the suns can destroy the shadows, Adatha Za. They are alien. The only hope there is—is to shut them off."