A blunt projection ripped across his back. Even through the leaded suit, the pain of it made him scream. He heard the sound as a distant, throttled echo. Then even the dim green light was gone.
The screen flickered abominably. It showed mostly a blurred mob of people, trampling back and forth. Then it steadied and there was a picture, in bright, gay colors.
A starfish twenty feet across wrapping itself around a woman and her stupefied child.
"We saw that," said Fallon. "On the beach. Remember?"
He thought Joan answered, but there was another picture. A vast red crab, pulling a man to bits with its claws. And after that, the shrieking woman outside the broken window, dragged down by a worm.
"Wonder who got those shots?" said Fallon. Again Joan answered, but he didn't hear her. The pictures moved more rapidly. Rays, black against the blue sky. Planes falling. Guns firing and firing and choking to silence. People, black endless streams of them, running, running, running.
Joan pulled at him. Her face was strangely huge. Her eyes were as he had first seen them, hard chips of sapphire. And at last he heard what she was saying.
"Your fault, Webb Fallon. This might have been stopped. But you had to sleep. You couldn't take it. You're no good, Webb. No good. No good...."
Her voice faded, mixed somehow with a deep throbbing noise. "Joan!" he shouted. "Joan!" But her face faded too. The last he could see was her eyes, hard and steady and deeply blue.