Alan's voice: "All ready, Ed?"
"Yes!"
He added: "Lea?"
In the dimness of our cabin interior I saw her white arm go up in answer from where she crouched. She said: "Yes—ready."
Alan snapped on the current.
I sat back; I was limp and cold all over. There was nothing for me to do. Nothing but watch—and listen.
The light-beam grew very slowly into being. A low whirring—a trembling; it purred, this diabolic thing, like a smug cat licking its lips. Purred, and then seemed to hiss as its anger grew. Whirring, tiny vibrations of sound; they went up the scale in pitch; always soft—higher until the thing was screaming with its microscopic voice. Higher, faster until it faded away, too rapid for audibility.
But the low hiss and sputter of the current remained. And the light-beam grew. Darkness at first; then a radiance of faint dull red, streaming down from our projector; red and then up through the spectrum to violet; then white. Cold white—nothing but the mingling of all colors made too rapid for separate visibility.
A minute of this process. Our ship was hovering—horizontal propellers holding us poised. Some one said:
"His vehicle ought to be about here."