A wild light sprang into Keston's eye--of admiration, of regret. "What a thing is this that I created!" he muttered. "If only--" I truly believe that for a moment he half desired to see his brain-child triumph. The air was hideous with a thousand noises. The Glacier wall was cracking and splitting with the noise of thunderclaps; the machines were whirring and banging and crashing. It was a gallant effort! But the towering ice wall was not to be denied. Forward, ever forward, it moved, pushing inexorably the struggling machines before it, piling them up high upon one another, grinding into powder the front ranks. And to cap it all, the huge overhang, a thousand feet high, was swaying crazily and describing ever greater arcs. "Look!" I screamed and flung up my arm. Great freight planes were flying wing-to-wing, head-on for the tottering crag--deliberately smashing into the topmost point. "Trying to knock it back into equilibrium!" said Keston, eyes ablaze, dancing about insanely. But the last suicidal push did not avail. With screams as of a thousand devils and deafening rending roars, the whole side of the Glacier seemed to lean over and fall in a great earth-shattering crescendo of noise. While we watched, fascinated, rooted to the ground, that thousand feet of glittering wall described a tremendous arc, swinging with increasing momentum down, down, down to the earth it had so long been separated from. The clamoring machines were buried under, lost in a swirl of ice and snow. Only the Central Station remained, a few moments defiant under the swift onrush of its unfeeling foe. With a crash that could have been heard around the world, the uppermost crag struck the Station. The giant Glacier wall was down. The earth, the sky, the universe was filled with ice, broken, shattered, torn, splintered, vaporized! The ground beneath our feet heaved and tumbled in violent quake. We were thrown heavily--and I knew no more.... * * * * * I weltered out of unconsciousness. Keston was chafing my hands and rubbing my forehead with ice. He smiled wanly to find me still alive. Weak and battered, I struggled to my feet. Before me was a wilderness of ice, a new mountain range of gigantic tumbled blocks of dazzling purity. Of the embattled machines, of the Central Control Station, there was not a sign. They were buried forever under hundreds of feet of frozen water. I turned to Keston and shook his hand. "You've won; you've saved the world. Now let's get the prolats and start to rebuild." There was no trace of exultation in Keston's voice. Instead, he unaccountably sighed as we trudged up a narrow winding path to the top. "Yes," he said half to himself, "I've done it. But...." "But what?" I asked curiously. "That beautiful, wonderful machine I created!" he burst forth in sudden passion. "To think that it should lie down there, destroyed, a twisted mass of scrap metal and broken glass!" The Exile of Time