"Why—why this is terrible."
"You listen to me! Don't talk! If you don't run with me, then I'm going to carry you." He shook her. "We're going, you understand?"
"Not to be the Man-God—" Bohr's scream still rang over the turmoil. He had staggered, found himself at one of the barrage-braziers. And suddenly in a frenzy he overturned the brazier. Its light went out. A slit of darkness leaped into the barrage.
"Not to be the Man-God—" A frenzy of disappointment, disillusionment was in Bohr's wild voice. All his plans now gone awry as he felt himself dying from the knifeblade in his head.
A slit of darkness in the barrage.... And now Bohr had staggered and overturned another brazier. It was his last act. He staggered and fell as through the widened dark slit, the hideous torrent of screaming, chattering saffron monsters rolled through. In a second Bohr was engulfed. The milling Marlans, shouting in wild terror now, were trying to run. Ponderous, sluggish steps.... The horrible yellow torrent engulfed them.
"Ah-li! Ah-li dear—" Atwood gasped. The girl, fascinated with horror had been resisting him. "We've got to try to get away."
"Yes. Oh, yes—I see it."
She guided him. Hand in hand they leaped—a great sailing leap that carried them across the square into a now almost deserted section of the village. And then another—over two or three of the mound-dwellings. Another, and they went through the opposite side of the barrage.
