There was a sputter of sound. Lanny leaped to his feet, his hand closing on his stone knife. He heard a roar of clanging metal in the automobile showroom. Then silence.
Lanny sprang through the open door. Dimly he saw Gill sitting in the sedan, his hands gripping the wheel.
"What happened?"
"It started, Lanny. I just came in to look at it, to touch it again, and—"
"So you made the motor turn over?" This came from Dr. Pendillo, who was feeling his way through the door behind Lanny. "How, Gill?"
Gill slid out of the car, backing away from it. "I don't know. I don't know!"
"You must, Gill."
"I got in. I was—I was pretending it was before the invasion and I was driving the machine down the road. I could see the matter structure of the motor in my mind, and how the parts fit together. I must have touched the starter."
"After twenty years, the battery would be dead and the fuel would have evaporated. Tell me what you really did, Gill."
Gill clenched his fist against his mouth. "It seemed as if it were a part of me, like my hand. And then the machinery began to move, because—because I wanted it to. Maybe there was some fuel left, father, and maybe—"