ony, but he could say
nothing. A great force surged through his body, radiating, charging
every cell and atom of his being. He felt as if he were being lifted
from the floor. Then the globe seemed to dissolve in his hands. It
became a glare of light, grew misty, and then vanished.

For a moment he stood there on tiptoe, arced with the potent violence of
the force, glowing from within with energies, and then he felt as if the
supercharge were dissolving itself, slipping into him, sliding into the
ground, then disappearing.

He stood before the column, swaying, but still conscious and alive. His
hands were still raised, but there was no ball between them, neither of
metal nor of power.

He let them fall to his side and took a step. He was whole, he was
sound, he was unharmed. He heard his father's footsteps running to him,
and murmured weakly, "I'm all right."

And he was. He could see no sign of damage. "I must have absorbed an
awful lot of that energy--or whatever it was," he said.

After resting a moment, he decided to try the useless controls again.
Going over to one small board, he idly shoved a lever. This time he felt
resistance. The lever was activated. There was a slight change in the
radiance of one globe.

"Dad!" Burl shouted. "It works! It works for me now!"

Mark Denning watched as Burl turned dials and levers and got responses.
"You must have been charged in a special way," he said excitedly.
"That's how they lock their devices. They will only respond to a person
carrying that special energy charge, whatever it was. Come on, let's get
to the main control, before the effect goes away--if it does."

The two dashed to the panel which, they guessed, activated the main Sun
transmitter. Burl grabbed the instruments and threw them back to what
seemed to be the zero positions.

The humming rose in intensity, then quieted down and finally stopped.
There was a series of clicks, and one by one, the various globes,
condensers and glowing machines died out. Above them came a whirring
noise, and Burl looked up to see the masts withdrawing into the
building, their discs presumably left flat and directionless.

It felt different. Suddenly they knew that the vibrations which had been
so heavy in the air about them were gone. There was silence everywhere,
the natural silence of an empty, lifeless building in an uninhabited
valley.

Burl and his father made their way to the break in the wall and climbed
through i