Even though few of them knew quite what could happen, they wanted to get as far away from the hole as they could.
Marta was rocking Paul gently in her arms and crooning something Swedish. The ground trembled under them, then lurched violently. Sheets of broken plate glass rained down on them from the control ring windows. Chandler knew the same thing was happening everywhere as the shock waves from the drill reverberated around the globe.
He looked around. They were alone on the basin floor except for the contorted body of Kotenko. Paul looked up at Marta.
"How—much—time?"
Marta, her face close to his, smiled faintly. "No more time for you and me." Her eyes were dry.
A sound as of millions of giant rocks grating together welled up from the bowels of the Earth. He was looking into Marta's eyes when suddenly everything vaporized into blinding white heat.
"Clench your fingers."
"Blink your eyes."
The short man in the gleaming laboratory was leaning over Chandler. "We did our best," he said.