Beneath us now was the same Space which in my Time held the Turber Sanatorium! I gazed down our white, slightly spreading beam. It fell on the roof here with a hundred foot circle of white illumination. It showed a small metal house on the roof-surface, with a group of Turberites on guard along a railed trestleway near it. They had evidently been lounging about; they were on their feet now, surprised by the light.
I stared, cold with fascination. I heard Alan murmur: "God!"
The men stood with upflung hands against the dazzling light. Stood transfixed—and then tried to run. I saw one fall; another turn, waver and crumple. Others, stronger, tried to stagger—weirdly swaying with arms flinging wildly and legs bending, crumpling—they did not lie mercifully still at once, but writhed gruesomely.
The figures were strewn in a moment. Some, near the edge of the circle, got out of it and away. Confusion—horror down there. Other figures came like frightened animals running into the light; stood stricken and fell—or managed to get back.
Lea appeared beside me. She bent over Alan—showed him other adjustments. The circle of light narrowed upon the small house.
I had been aware of a sound from below.
A throbbing—a rhythmic throb. The house and all this immediate section of the roof was vibrating—trembling—shaking—
It grew louder. Like a pendulum, where at the end of each swing your finger gives it an added push, the impulse of our beam was shaking this little building—rocking this roof-segment.
A corner of the building split off and fell; a crack seemed to open in the roof; the little house broke apart and slithered through the crack. The human figures spilled down.