Colossus! Colossus rising over the horizon ... a head, then mighty neck, broad shoulders, naked torso ... rising from the other side of the world like a vast, bestial nightmare. A tremendous Colossus whose head was so far above the veiled cloudlets of Titan that from time to time he was forced to bob and weave in order to avoid collision with the "rogues," those tiny bits of cosmic debris escaped from Saturn's Ring which besprinkle space in the neighborhood of the girdled planet.
"Rocky!" Bud was chattering on the vocoder. "Rocky, what's the matter. CX, Rocky Russell. CX, Rocky Russell.... Are you all right, Rocky?"
Rocky answered slowly, "I'm all right, Bud. But I just saw him. We all just saw him. He—he's tremendous!"
"You're telling me? See them manacles? He's grown so big they've split in half ... right up the back! They look like the only reason they're hanging on is because they're imbedded in his flesh! And his height.... Whew! The navigator here just shot an estimate! Over six thousand feet, Rocky! Colossus is more than a mile high!"
Rocky said, "Keep on the beam, Bud, and don't mind if I don't answer you immediately. I'm fighting my way north on the safeway, hunting for Lynn. She's in New Boston—"
"New Boston!" Bud's voice was horror-stricken. "My Lord, no! She mustn't be, Rocky! That's where he's heading for right now. He can see it ... he's got a glint in his eye ... a blood-lust.... Oh, great gods of space.... Rocky!"
The voice died in a tiny wail.
Russell needed no explanation of his agonized words. For he, too, saw the climax of that frightful action. Colossus had climbed completely over the horizon, now. There was no doubt he had spotted the city. He seemed fascinated by its twin towers. Like a destructive child experimenting with some new toy he leaned over, gripped the spire of the nearest between a massive thumb and forefinger ... and snapped it off!
From the shard of stone and metal wherein a few desperate fugitives had taken refuge dropped tiny motes, tumbling hundreds of feet to certain, dreadful doom! Rocky could not hear their screams ... but he could imagine them. One of those black fragments might have been ... could have been....
He shook his head doggedly. No! He must not think of such things! Lynn still lived. Must live!