The first tests confirmed what Craig had already presumed; that the explosion had been absolutely clean. What radiation existed had originated from molecules in the rock itself or in the vaporized snow. There was no way of guessing at the type of blast; he only knew that mass had been transformed virtually one hundred per cent into energy in a very short period of time. No process Craig knew even approached it.
He stared again at the tunnel mouths. He was sure now that something had come out of them, risen about seven hundred feet above the plateau and released the blast. He trembled with eagerness to get inside, danger or no.
He had turned impatiently to Brulieres, when somewhere deep in the tunnels, shouting broke out. Two pistol shots echoed hollowly. There was a clatter of running footsteps. Craig found his right hand fumbling at his hip, and felt foolish. He hadn't carried a sidearm since Korea.
Lieutenant Rabar burst through the tunnel, stumbling in the sunlight, his face contorted. He ran straight across the plateau and threw himself over the edge. Dientes, who had jumped to his feet, was only a step behind him. Craig, eyes fastened on the tunnel, realized vaguely that the two must have landed in deep snow, since there was no sound of their falling.
A glow appeared in the tunnel. Craig fought the panic that seized him; stood his ground and was aware of Brulieres beside him. The glow brightened.
Its source came into sight—a ball of dazzling brilliance, oval and about the size of a man's torso. It emerged into sunlight and Craig saw that it was solid. It looked like incandescent metal, but he somehow felt that it wasn't hot. It seemed to move at will and to hover without support.
It acted alive.
It moved a little way toward Craig and Brulieres, then stopped. A tentative rumble came from it, like the beginning of thunder. Something like a tentacle lifted, clutching an object that resembled a flashlight. A blinding lance of heat shot from the object and struck the rock a few yards in front of the two men. A sound came from the rock like ice pressed upon a hot stove. Smoke puffed upward. The beam lasted only an instant, but it left a long curved scar in the rock.
 
The thing rumbled again, and flashed so brightly Craig threw an arm over his eyes, and heard his own voice cry out wordlessly. His legs tensed to run, but something about the behavior of the thing held him where he was. It seemed unsure of itself, and not really threatening.
When he looked up again, it was moving laterally and up the face of the wall. He saw the flashlight-like object on the ground where it had evidently been dropped.
The oval thing, no longer glowing, lifted fast toward the mountain top. He saw that it was metal, not rusted or corroded but dull with age, and he saw the two ragged holes near the middle of it. He strained his eyes for more detail but it grew tiny in the distance and he saw no joints and no protuberances other than the one tentacle. He lost it in the shadows of the mountain's brow, then saw it flash momentarily in the sun as it curved up and over.
After a moment he turned dazedly toward Brulieres. But before he could say anything there was a sun-dimming flash of light from beyond the mountain. The ground danced. Sound, echoing from the other peaks and battering its way through the solid rock of the mountain, beat about them like monstrous punishing wings.
As the vast thunder dwindled away, Craig, squinting, saw a tenuous, rapidly dimming mushroom cloud tower above the peak. He flinched, but knew that this would be another clean explosion. Most of the cloud was steam. He was sure they were seeing a re-enactment of the blast which had cleared this plateau.
His mind worked in simple patterns: the thing was destroyed; it had dropped its weapon.
He started toward the tunnel mouth, but he had hesitated too long. Brulieres, moving very agilely, was ahead of him.
The priest picked up the weapon and turned toward Craig. Craig, still befuddled, wondered mildly at his own detached state of mind: is he going to kill me; I'd love to get that weapon home to the labs; so that's how he keeps warm. (The latter in reference to the heavy underwear he'd glimpsed beneath the priest's cassock as the padre bent over).
But Brulieres' voice was mild. "Please forgive me for taking possession of this, Doctor. Later, I hope, you will be able to examine it; but I must think first of my own responsibilities." He looked at the thing briefly, started to stow it in some fold of his gown, then hesitated. As if unable to resist the temptation, he aimed it at the rock wall and put his thumb on something.
The incandescence squirted out. The rock cried out and yielded up a curl of smoke. Brulieres turned the thing off at once and turned back to Craig with an expression half guilty, half delighted, like a child with a forbidden toy. Then he sighed and put the weapon away.
Craig had observed what details he could. The thing was an inch or a little more in diameter, perhaps ten inches long. All except one tip was dull and apparently knurled to g............