He closed another switch. And then—
* * *
Blackness! An utter darkness that enveloped them in a split-second of time, a rayless obscurity such as none of them had ever experienced before.
Thorn looked up bewilderedly, toward where the sun should be blazing down through the ceiling-window. But there was no sunlight now — no light of any kind — nothing but blackness.
"Blaine, what's gone wrong?” he cried hoarsely. “This darkness—"
"Nothing has gone wrong!” shrilled Philip Blaine's thin voice triumphantly. “My neutralizer, my great invention, has succeeded! I knew it would if I had power enough!"
"You mean that it's this machine that has killed all the light here in the cavern?” John Thorn cried.
"It's done more than that!” Blaine exclaimed. “It's killed all light everywhere! I've blacked out the whole Solar System!"
A babel of cries of terror rose from the throng in the cavern, above the thunderous throb and drone of the great machine.
"Killed all light in the solar system?” Thorn gasped. “Impossible!"