“Two men,” someone else said, “are lying in the hall. Under bricks.”
“It was worse on the bomb side,” somebody murmured.
These voices came dimly, through the ringing of his cars.
They were looking at him and filing back, more all the time. “
Okay,” he heard his voice begin, “Trent and Dawson, see about the fire. The house crew’ll probably be on it soon, but check. The house medical’s in the gym. Send for them—start picking the bricks off the hurt men. Leete, inspect the other side and report back. Have the runners’ information collated downstairs from now on; just bring me the main points.”
Someone else said, “Maybe this building is no longer safe!”
Henry felt his lips turn into a grin, and the feeling buttressed him just when he needed support. “So what?” he replied. “It’s still here! That’s at least something.”
People began to move, to do things—slowly, Henry thought….
Ted Conner went under his table. The Light came. The house bucked and screamed as if some cosmic claw hammer were trying to open it. A thud seemed to compress his body on all sides at once. His radio equipment, the precious store of instruments earned by hundreds of mowed lawns, was flung on the floor and smashed. Hundreds of hours or work done on the set by his father, too: smithereens.
He picked himself up. His leg was bruised and bleeding. He drew out a jagged piece of Bakelite.