"I knew it, Drake," he said."Ruth told me all about it when Cherkis had us.And I'm very glad.It's time she was having a home of her own and not running around the lost places with me.I'll miss her--miss her damnably, of course.But I'm glad, boy--glad!"There was a little silence while each looked deep into each other's hearts.Then Ventnor dropped Dick's hand.
"And that's all of THAT," he said."The problem before us is--how are we going to get back home?""The--THING--is dead." I spoke from an absolute conviction that surprised me, based as it was upon no really tangible, known evidence.
"I think so," he said."No--I KNOW so.Yet even if we can pass over its body, how can we climb out of its lair?
That slide down which we rode with Norhala is unclimbable.
The walls are unscalable.And there is that chasm--she--spanned for us.How can we cross THAT? The tunnel to the ruins was sealed.There remains of possible roads the way through the forest to what was the City of Cherkis.Frankly I am loathe to take it.
"I am not at all sure that all the armored men were slain--that some few may not have escaped and be lurking there.It would be short shrift for us if we fell into their hands now.""And I'm not sure of THAT," objected Drake."I think their pep and push must be pretty thoroughly knocked out --if any do remain.I think if they saw us coming they'd beat it so fast that they'd smoke with the friction.""There's something to that," Ventnor smiled."Still I'm not keen on taking the chance.At any rate, the first thing to do is to see what happened down there in the Pit.Maybe we'll have some other idea after that.""I know what happened there," announced Drake, surprisingly.
"It was a short circuit!"
We gaped at him, mystified.
"Burned out!" said Drake."Every damned one of them --burned out.What were they, after all? A lot of living dynamos.Dynamotors--rather.And all of a sudden they had too much juice turned on.Bang went their insulations --whatever they were.
"Bang went they.Burned out--short circuited.I don't pretend to know why or how.Nonsense! I do know.The cones were some kind of immensely concentrated force--electric, magnetic; either or both or more.I myself believe that they were probably solid--in a way of speaking --coronium.
"If about twenty of the greatest scientists the world has ever known are right, coronium is--well, call it curdled energy.The electric potentiality of Niagara in a pin point of dust of yellow fire.All right--they or IT lost control.Every pin point swelled out into a Niagara.And as it did so, it expanded from a controlled dust dot to an uncontrolled cataract--in other words, its energy was unleashed and undammed.
"Very well--what followed? What HAD to follow? Every living battery of block and globe and spike was supercharged and went--blooey.The valley must have been some sweet little volcano while that short circuiting was going on.All right--let's go down and see what it did to your unclimbable slide and unscalable walls, Ventnor.
