But now—
Vinson stopped cold, three steps inside of the door. The vast room was empty, the machine was gone. The aisles and aisles of neatly machined rack and panel were bare; all that remained was the linoleum in the aisles—
That and the floor-studs now gleamed nakedly, each with its nut placed precisely before it on the edge of the linoleum. Far down the empty hall a power junction box was open; its heavy switches open; its fuses pulled. The busbars that carried power to the machine had been unbolted and the bare end reached out like the butt of an amputated arm.
Vinson's mind could have coped with ruin from natural causes—such as tornado or earthquake—even though the site of this building had been carefully selected to avoid such dangers. Vinson could have accepted unnatural ruin, such as sabotage—though again the site of the building had been kept as secret as could be to avoid such. But this was not destruction, either from foreign agents or the fury of nature.
This was complete dis-installation; theft; ton after ton of ultra-complex electro-mechanical gear neatly disconnected and removed during the course of one eight-hour period.
It was far too much to believe. Harry Vinson's mind rebelled; he reeled dizzily, turned in a dreamlike stupor and left the room. Moments later he was in his car and driving back to his bachelor quarters in the city, some miles away. Vinson was still in a daze as he undressed and got into bed.
He slept for an hour, which brought him to his regular time for arising, and awoke feeling the aftermath of a terrifying nightmare. He remembered himself in the grip of a gleaming mechanical monster, a lovely, frightened girl beside him. In his hand was some sort of pistol which shot out a futile beam at the ensnaring metal talons; he was high in the air of some strange world, which spread out below him.... Harry Vinson smiled grimly; the nightmare was symbolic, of course, and he wondered just what the dream had symbolized.
To dream of eight years of work disappearing overnight ... dream himself captured by machinery! It might be a good idea to talk to Doc Caldwell; he could help. Harry wondered whether he might have been working too hard, then shook his head and stopped thinking about it as best he could. No man, Caldwell had said, should try to analyze his own subconscious....
The nightmare memory faded, driven out of Vinson's mind by the eagerness of watching the machine work. He made coffee, washed his cup quickly, and in another five minutes was driving out across the wide, open plain towards the building.