There was a definite irregularity.
Cursing himself for a fool for not having thought of the thing before, he closed the switches on the second and third machines. The tripled stream of magnetism had an instant effect.
Cliff lived centuries in those seconds. The pendulum gave a sharp, strident tick, there was a long interval, then a solemn—tock.
Tick—Tock. Tick—Silence.
Dead silence expanding into seconds—minutes! It was a silence of infinity itself here in the bowels of Mars. But the pendulum had ceased to swing. The magnetism had counterweighted it. Cliff wanted to scream, to shout, to tell a planet forty million miles away that it was safe. But he had no way.
Thoughts flashed through his anguished mind. Trapped down here, valves shut, comrades gone, radio smashed—
He became tense. Strange noises were in the giant ball. Curious whirring noises. He stared at it in fascination as it turned a bright, glowing white. It became violet and he felt his skin blister with radiations.
A million pains stabbed through his eyes, slashed and tortured his body so that he dropped in gasping death at the foot of the defeated monster. . .
He never saw nor heard the globe as it exploded with colossal violence to release the energy it had so long stored up.
BUT they saw it on Earth, and felt it as the Earth reeled from a sudden gravitational change. The report that flashed round the world was ironic and coldly official to say the least of it.
"Severe Martian explosion has caused the planet to suffer almost complete disintegration. Remaining parts in state of collapse. Feared anilum Expedition wiped out. The men engaged in same probably contacted an old volcanic seam. Rescue party leaving immediately.
"Earth Bureau of Official Information."
COMING!
THE STORY YOU
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Ever since "Sons of the Deluge" you have been pleading with us to secure a new serial to compare with it; a new full-length novel which would provide the "meaty" body that only a novel can give. Now we have it!
60,000 words of the finest science fiction this great author has ever written, and he ranks beyond all doubt as the most popular writer Amazing Stories has ever presented in all its more than 15 years of existence. It is a story that will thrill you to your marrow, make you stand up and shout: "It's a classic!"
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