Adventures in the Far Future & Tales of Outer Space — page 84: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“Sequence pull,” Collins said. No man spoke what was in his heart, for there were no words. Even their thoughts were under control; they thought of the problem before them and nothing else. One by one, the damping control rods were pulled. There were eight of them; Renaldo pulled the last. Nothing happened. There was a deathly silence. Collins held his breath. It might be that Malcolm, in the control room, had not followed instructions. Or they themselves had miscalculated. Or— A tiny, feeble clicking sounded in the room. In the Silence, it was almost deafening as each fragile click was magnified in the listeners’ imagination until it became a thundering roar. “The counters,” whispered Collins. “The counters—” With a mounting intensity, the clicks Increased in both numbers and strength. They beat a tattoo in the chamber, a tattoo that modulated into a smooth whir of power. Suddenly, there was light: white, blinding light that Slashed at the mind and burned into eyeballs. Someone screamed, then choked it off. A crushing, terrible force leaped from the floor and Smashed the men down. They fell sprawling, gasping for breath, flecks of blood touching the corners of their mouths with crimson. They were pressed into the hard floor—it seemed that they must press through it entirely and out into Space to perish. A humming roar filled the engine room and the great Ship, still for numberless years, vibrated with a surge of power and energy. “Wrong,” gasped Echols hoarsely, his mouth pulled out of Shape by the terrible pressure. “What went wrong?” “Nothing,” coughed Collins, pulling himself along the floor like a snake. “That’s it—don’t you see? Nothing.” The four men stared at each other then, wincing from the pressure pull and the glare of the white lights. And there, CORniclooo SS (SO)