There was only the tele-vise, and two other instruments. One was merely a wheel, six feet in diameter. The other was a machine complicated beyond anything Ketrik had ever imagined. Giant tubes, coils, and alien looking grids nestled in the bulk of it. Cables thick as his arm led to the nearest wall, thence upward to the lower rim of the glassite dome, and completely around it. From there, other cables dangled downward for a few feet into empty space.
Ketrik approached the control panel. It seemed simpler than he had supposed, but he studied it a while before reaching out a tentative hand to the first switch. The coils shrieked maddeningly, then the sound ascended the scale and passed beyond the audible. The giant tubes pulsed to life, throwing out a silver radiance. Then Ketrik reached out to what seemed to be a master-lever. He pulled it slowly toward him.
There came a sound, a sighing, which rose to tremendous crescendo as though every wind from the depths of space were sweeping in upon him! An awful vertigo as the dome, the floor, and all space between seemed to tilt crazily—into nothingness! He clung to the lever, sought to push it back. His mind reeled. Everything before him was merging into a grotesquerie of impossible angles and planes—and through it all came a twisting vortex of darkness, utter emptiness, that sought to sweep him out and away!
Then the lever gave before his surging muscles. It fell back into place. Everything came back to normal—except Ketrik. He allowed the dizziness to pass, and then grinning, he tried the stunt again! Two, three times more he tried it, with the same result, until he was quite sure of his mastery over that control.
For here was the machine he had hoped to find! Here was the means and the only means, of ridding the System once and for all of that Entity which Dar Vaajo in his madness had built up into such a weapon; a terribly alive weapon which, if allowed to go unchecked, with or without Dar Vaajo, could well become a menace to all the worlds! Ketrik realized that his task had reached the crucial point. A single mistake now, a mere miscalculation, and all would be over. So far he had only seen a manifestation of the Entity, not the thing itself. But he knew it must be here, somewhere very close—and waiting....
He stepped over to the towering perpendicular wheel.
It moved easily beneath his hand. He was tense now, watching the great expanse of floor a hundred feet below. His surmise was correct. A tiny crack appeared there, extending the length of the floor. And upward from it came light—greenish, terrible light which he'd felt before, which he knew was the Entity itself, eager to lash outward! Almost, Ketrik hesitated. But he forced his hand to move the wheel.
The crack widened as the floor moved away on either side. Gradually he could see the Entity, the very bulk of it—maddening, impossible—but there it was! Fully a hundred feet across, greenish and blinding! It was roughly globular, seemed to be a giant brain slowly pulsing and evilly alive, yet somehow it was more than that. It was quasi-amorphous, writhing and changing shape and trying to heave itself upward! Tentacles lashed out—tentacles that seemed to be solidified light, seeking ... seeking for sustenance!
It began to move upward. Up between the walls on a sliding platform, to a point just above the floor, where it stopped. Some of its light touched Ketrik, beat against his helmet and surged about him, tearing with cold fingers at his beryllium suit. In his absorbing interest he had almost forgotten the controlling rays! He hurled himself at the panel. With reckless sweeps of his hands he flicked on the studs.