"Tom—Oh, look at Torkine!" I was aware that Johnny was gripping me. Up on the dais in the midst of the commotion the big figure of Torkine was standing motionless. His left arm was around Dora who in terror sagged against him. The light revealed clearly his pale, handsome face, and I saw again that leering, triumphant smile. And now his right hand was fumbling under his flaring, gaudy jacket.
Perhaps the monster itself in that instant was startled at the magnitude of this human commotion. The droning central voice abruptly ceased. In the room behind me I was aware that the Physicals had darted back through the doorway and gone outside. And on the dais the leering, triumphant Torkine suddenly brought his right hand from under his jacket. He was leveling a weapon! My ray-gun! My paralyzing vibration-projector!
This, then, was what Torkine had been planning! This was what had inspired drunken boldness among his men! Torkine was leveling it now at the glowing, quivering spread of the Supreme One!
In that tense, breathless second I was aware that Johnny and I were leaning out over the sill of the window, numbly staring. And then Torkine fired my vibration-gun! Its hissing, infra-red bolt spat down into the palpitating spread of the great rooted, multiple monster! There was a split-second when it seemed to me as though all the world hung breathless, pregnant with expectancy of horror.
And the horror came, with a rushing, spreading tumult. Down in the glowing mass of the great circular, flat body there was a little puff of light-flash where the ray vibrations struck. A blow at one of its hearts? It seemed that one of the blobs of heart-muscle was wildly beating, expanding and lunging. And the central eye was flashing crimson and seeming to split with electric flame.
And now in a flash almost simultaneous with the first shot, its wrath was transmitted to its remote, detached parts. Over all the weird chaotic scene of milling humans, the little Physicals sprang into action. A thousand of them as this multiple-membered monster ran amok.
I felt Johnny pulling at me. "Got to get out of here, Tom. It's our last chance!"
"Johnny," I gasped, gripping him. "Got to keep together. Try and get to Dora!"
"Yes; keep away from the Physicals. Good God, Tom!"