He turned to find Marene and Bob standing beside the gun. Marene was sobbing quietly. Bob was staring bewilderedly at the dangling end of one of the electrodes he held in his hands.
"The blast from the ship!" he cried. "The blast from the ship carried away one of the electrodes! We are without power for the disintegrator!"
Zurk took the severed cable into his own hands. He saw immediately that repairs were out of the question. A long section had been blasted away between the floor and the gun. And the disintegrator was useless without power!
Another blast from the black ship shuddered the laboratory and brought answering sparks from Zurk's steel shell.
Then he knew! The solution came startlingly clear to his brain. He would make the connection with his own metal body!
Grasping the cable tighter in his hand, he set his foot down heavily upon the other end that lay upon the floor.
His eyes glowed as he wheeled the snout of the gun about with his free hand, wheeled it directly toward the heart of the black ship and pressed the release with his thumb.
The burning wave of hot power that surged through him nearly blinded him. But he saw the great ship shudder as the disintegrating force smashed into it, saw it lose form in a shapeless cloud of nothingness as its neutralized atoms went spinning away.
A great cry of triumph rang out from the fighting men of the city. The hand guns redoubled their fury.