Finally came the day when the first charges were set to go off. Holden sat in the pilot room of the Ganymede, his eyes on the chronometer, while Captain Linet swept the desolate plain with powerful binoculars for the cloud of dust which would signal the return of the last party.
"Five minutes yet, Captain," Holden said in a low voice. "Tell the Los Angeles to pull out. The first charges are scarcely two hundred miles from here, and I'm not certain how fast the reaction will travel."
Five minutes. Two minutes. The silver shape of the Los Angeles was already fading in the distance. Suddenly a sharp shock rocked the stony bed on which the Ganymede was resting. Simultaneously five figures appeared, racing at full speed for the ship. Shock after shock tore at the ground beneath their feet. Holden stood at the controls, waiting for the signal that his five comrades were safely aboard. To his tensed nerves it seemed hours before the welcome sound came to his ears, and with a sigh of relief he opened the power into the stern tubes, and laughed happily as the huge ship shot away from the heaving surface of the dying moon.
Anxious seconds passed. From the height to which they had risen, a great part of the moon was visible, and for the first time Holden realized the full power of the chemical which his ingenuity had devised. Immense tongues of flame ripped through the dust and rock of the satellite, sending dense clouds of vapor bellowing out into space. Mighty mountains disappeared in an instant.
The Ganymede was traveling at full speed, and yet it seemed as though at any moment the conflagration might reach out, consuming the space ship in that all-engulfing reaction. Holden manipulated the controls with flying fingers, seeking to get every available bit of speed from the metal monster which was carrying its precious cargo of human beings away from a terrible death.
Far ahead he could see the shape of the Los Angeles, now safely outside the danger zone. Thin clouds of vapor floated around the Ganymede, then suddenly cleared.
Captain Linet gave a shout of joy as he read the distance recorded on the dials. "Jack, my boy, we're safe. We're outside the limit to which the reaction can extend."
With the three ships playing their deadly beams on the moon, Holden watched the immense craters, the towering mountains, and the desolate plains of the moon slowly vaporize.
It was an awe-inspiring sight, as this dead world slowly melted into the nothingness of space, as though a disease of matter were wasting it inexorably away.
No doubt, on the earth, as the contours of the moon slowly blurred and became indistinct, with the accumulation of vapor around its now ragged rim, there must have been terror and consternation. And as the moon slowly evaporated in the skies a virtual panic must have ensued among the Earth's people.