If only he could learn the power of these people! The thought buoyed him like a drug. After two days spent in the room, he was dispirited. Whatever power the space-wanderers used was as dead as the Machine.
Flane swore and heaved a wrench at a wall.
The wall opened.
Something tumbled out, and from the mouth of it a purple flame sizzled and burned, and ate away the wall and the wall beyond that.
Flane yelped and sprang. He stared in numb horror until he saw the button on the thing, a button as obvious as a trigger. He crept close, pressed it, and the violet flame stopped.
Flane shook for minutes, kneeling on the metal floor with the deadly thing in his hands.
He knew nothing of atomic power, did Flane, but the quick mind of him was alert to the power he held in his palms. Tentatively he pressed the button again, directed the lavender fire, watched it eat up whatever stood in its path.
"This is a weapon that is a weapon," he breathed, patting its shining sides, his eyes dancing. With this in his hands, he could remake a world.
Where the violet flame had been was an empty hole. Flane stared into it, seeing twisted girders and gaping hullsides, and black sands below. That was the desert, down there, and—