Spelford and his men left, locking the door
behind them. In a moment the warning signal for lift-off was given. The
ship raised itself gently from the surface of the asteroid. The fierce
glare of destructive laser strikes came through the quartz window for
nearly a minute, and the prisoners knew that the living quarters of Z25
were being systematically destroyed.
"They're ramsquaddling the whole operation," said Sabbath George in a
voice that sounded almost matter-of-fact. "Never had anything like this
happen before. This is a first."
When the glow ceased, the ships accelerated. The Starmen and their
companions felt themselves pressed into the chairs.
The five invisible ships had been gone for over an hour, but the man in
the shadow still did not move. He was on a neighboring chunk of
floating iron, just a mile or two in diameter with a very slow
rotation. St. George's asteroid would vanish below his horizon in a few
minutes. The man pulled the telescope up to his face plate once again
and scanned the area that had been the base on Z25. There had been no
movement of any kind since the ships had rayed the site. He took a few
more pictures for his files. The metal and quartz plating-all signs of
human presence-had been completely destroyed, melted into the rock of
the asteroid.
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