The Twisters were out in force, swarming around in the big beam and looking more than ever like inside-out octopuses. They didn't have any eyes, as far as I could see, but I could feel them staring upward, studying us.
"Now will you listen to reason?" Doc demanded, and reached for the switch. "I'm going to turn off the beam, before—"
Catastrophe stopped him.
The big orange strain-bubble over the Di-tube generator exploded like an A-bomb. Concussion rocked the room, shattering windows and piling brasshats and technicians together in aimless heaps. Dora and I landed together in a corner, knocking over the little cabinet that housed our first model Di-tube generator.
The big generator overloaded, pouring out black smoke. Relays slammed like triphammers, shutting off current. The Di-tube shaft in the floor blinked out, taking the Twisters with it.
But another Dimension-tunnel speared downward through the roof, ending at the spot where the exploded strain-bubble had been. And it wasn't ours.
It was packed solid with what looked like bedsprings, coiled and conical, eight feet long and blazing with a crackling bluish light that hurt the eyes. They slid down the beam and popped out into the lab with a swift precision that meant they knew exactly what they were doing, to cluster like sizzling blue glow-worms about the smoking generator.
Half-dazed as I was, the truth hit me with a shock that curled my hair like an Angora rug. Those sputtering fire-worms were not ganging around the dead generator just to get warm.
They were studying it.
I got up somehow and headed for the laboratory exit, carrying Dora's limp form in my arms. The military beat me to it. The generals and their staffs were already there, jamming the doorway like a herd of stampeded sheep. I was the last man out, leaving the fire-worms still circling about the smoking generator.