"I have crew enough," Kotenko told her. "Without the X-factor, complete control is not so important." Chandler leaped for Kotenko, but the Russian's gun blasted white flame. A searing pain ripped into Chandler's chest. He fell to his knees. The soldier's rifle cracked and Kotenko's silhouette crumbled against the control lever. Electro-mechanisms whirred and the drill suddenly plunged into the depths of the Earth, carrying most of Kotenko's crew with it. "Good God!" someone cried. Marta was kneeling beside Chandler, tears streaming down her face. "Paul!" she sobbed. "Oh, Paul!" Chandler could taste the warm saltiness of blood in his mouth. "Get the control crew here--quick," he gasped. Someone moved for the stairs while someone else leaped for the field control unit. Chandler's foggy mind touched reality for brief moments, condensing time into a montage. A doctor was working on him, then shaking his head at the sobbing Marta. Lights were thrown on and control posts manned. Someone yelled, "Throw in force fields behind it!" And all the time Chandler's chest pulsed with pain. "Can't stop it!" someone shouted. Then chaos broke loose; men were running, blindly bumping into one another. Even though few of them knew quite what could happen, they wanted to get as far away from the hole as they could. Marta was rocking Paul gently in her arms and crooning something Swedish. The ground trembled under them, then lurched violently. Sheets of broken plate glass rained down on them from the control ring windows. Chandler knew the same thing was happening everywhere as the shock waves from the drill reverberated around the globe. He looked around. They were alone on the basin floor except for the contorted body of Kotenko. Paul looked up at Marta. "How--much--time?" Marta, her face close to his, smiled faintly. "No more time for you and me." Her eyes were dry. A sound as of millions of giant rocks grating together welled up from the bowels of the Earth. He was looking into Marta's eyes when suddenly everything vaporized into blinding white heat. "Clench your fingers." "Blink your eyes." * * * * * The short man in the gleaming laboratory was leaning over Chandler. "We did our best," he said. The pain was gone in Chandler's chest. "Marta," he called. "I'm afraid she's gone," the tall man said. "She and the entire Earth." The short man pulled off his lab coat. "Over a thousand years ago." "A thousand years?" Chandler's mind fumbled with the thought. "What's this all about?" The tall man snapped a series of switches off. "You ask the same question every time." "_Every_ time?"