Raymond Z. Gallun

“ A cube, perhaps four inches square. Like glass. Almost crystal in its transparency, except for a dim misting of pearl. Crowning the cube was a metal pyramid, much tarnished with age, and a dial. That was all. But Sam's gaze was almost gloating, as his mind filled with mighty visions of his own future. He was no different from any other man in this respect, for the touch of power was on him.
He turned the dial of the Martian apparatus. Within the cube spots of fire began to move, around and around a glowing center that was composed of myriad parts. ”

“ But, undeniably, atomic power was being released in a deadly, and uncontrollable if gradual, form.
The flashlight lay on the table shedding its white beam. Sam saw that Ellen's face was pale and her eyes glassy.
Sam had not the faintest idea of what he might do to check what he had started. "Get out of here, Ellen," he growled thickly. "Beat it! I've gone and tried to play God. And now hell's broken loose! Tell everybody to scram away from here!" ”

“ Sam Conway cursed himself for his eagerness and lust for power. He'd been like an old gold miner, he thought savagely, ready almost to kill his own brother to preserve his secret until he could use it for himself. There were too many men like that. And now Ellen and all the rest of the world had to suffer.
Mu. Atlantis. The asteroids that had perhaps once been a plant, destroyed, maybe, by a much more violent form of atomic breakdown. But who knew just what accidents might have caused these respective catastrophes? Science must sometimes get ahead of itself, without even outside influence. ”

“ Nature had been probed in its darkest lair by a clumsy hand. Nature had growled back threateningly. It had almost bitten. Almost...? Sam Conway's ribs seemed to shrink about his wildly pounding heart.
He leaned against the cracked brick wall, trembling. In memory he was on Mars again seeing those ruined buildings, sheered off, buried by the dust—smelling the metallic reek of ozone that had seeped back through the breath-vent of his oxygen helmet. Even as here, now. Ozone built up from the commoner form of oxygen by electrical discharges! ”

“ A cancerous disease moving in an irregular path, depleting air and water. But there still must be a tiny part of the old process of atomic breakdown continuing on Mars today, maintaining, by electrical disturbances, the ozone in the air.
And he, Sam Conway, had started that same creeping horror here on Earth. It would go along now, spreading and spreading. The walls around him would soon be melting. And there was nothing a man could do to stop it. Not even the science of Mars had been able to save the world that had given it birth. ”

“ Touching the cube with his fingers, Sam found that it was hot.
He left the thing in its hole and returned to Ellen, his mind full of colossal realizations.
The girl's voice quavered with awe as she spoke there under the quiet stars.
"We had help, didn't we, Sam?" she stammered, remembering the cloud in the sky, and what Sam had told her about his work. "Somebody from another world. But who? Where...?"
"I don't know, Honey," Sam answered raggedly. "It wasn't Martian help. As far as I know, all Martians are dead. Besides, I've seen their bones. Manlike, but very slender. ”

“ And I suppose that somehow they keep careful watch across the awful distance because they've learned by experience that it may be safer. It's not just to save the necks of lesser beings but to guard themselves, too. I was messing around with something pretty big, Ellen. You can't tell how far a danger may sometimes go. A whole universe may be thrown into chaos—"
Sam's fists were clenching and unclenching absently. It was better for science to develop gradually, with a race. ”

“ In the developing fluids it turned entirely black. There were strong invisible rays then, to affect it; rays coming from the walls, the ground, the very air itself perhaps. Rays probably from bursting atoms. The sound—the humming—must be some incidental phenomenon of their breakdown.
Dully Sam felt of the walls. Their temperature was already higher than that of the air and they vibrated distinctly with that steady hum. Sam's whole body felt hot, as though a strange flame was blazing in his own flesh. ”

“ All the way I could smell ozone in the air. You can hardly see the phosphorescence in the sky from up close at all. But it's right over. What's wrong, Sam? What have you really been doing?"
The girl's tense fears, strong enough to make her come here, after midnight, to his laboratory, emphasized Sam's own private anxieties.
"I haven't been doing much, Honey," he told her hesitantly, and not too convincingly. "You'd better just run along home to bed. Research causes accidents once in a while. I'll get everything straightened out all right." ”

“ Only in scattered places where the erratic horror had not reached, perhaps in deep crevices in the rocks, had a few plants and low animals been able to survive for a new beginning after most of the fires had died. ”