A sense of bleak desolation swept over Marlin, as he watched the other man, with his somber burden, slowly ascend the ramp toward the blackened door of the incinerator.
At this moment the blow struck.
The concussion was so terrific that it sent Marlin sprawling the full length of the ramp. He brought up against a hard surface, dazed and gasping, and lay inert for a period that might have been minutes, vaguely aware of the darkness, of shrieks, and the crash of falling bodies.
Painfully, at length, he picked himself up.
As the sphere continued to heave and vibrate from the impact, someone fell against him. Clutching arms caught at him and a voice—Sally's—sobbed convulsively in his ears.
He disengaged the clinging arms.
"Cut it out!" he said gruffly. "We're still alive—I don't know why. Let's see if we can find any lights."
Half dragging the girl after him, he made his way to the storeroom. He remembered a drawer containing flashlights. Several were broken, but he located a couple in working order.
Above the general clamor, the howls of someone apparently in agony rose with monotonous regularity. With the aid of the flashlights, he stumbled toward the sound, Sally following. Overhead the girders groaned and clanked with metallic reverberations. Several of them must have been fractured.