It halted, dead, in mid-air, a yard away from the shape-thing. Dropped straight down, clanging against the floor.
A quiver as of mirth appeared to shake the different-whiteness. It stooped. One hand-end fumbled at the palmed rheostat, then dropped to pick up the disarmer. Fumbled again at the rheostat while the figure straightened up to point the glistening projector at Jason's belly.
The dark opening in the hood appeared again.
Lonnie's voice chortled, "Told you I'd use whatever you tried to smear you with. Goodbye, Jasey ..."
The dark line was gone. The disarmer, turned to lethal potential, settled in the shape's hand-end and began to spout. Jason went stiff. Every muscle of his body clenching to withstand obliteration.
He waited for it. Tight ... except his eyes that, in spite of themselves, opened.
Caught within the field, the full power of the disarmer poured itself into the suit. The suit's capacity absorbed it. Almost. Then turned the combined energies on itself.
With the smell of frying organic matter, slowly the grid-coveralls appeared in dazzling radiance within the dazzle of the Fane's lights; glowed in it; red—then white—hot. Whiter than the light itself—far, far lighter than any reflected rays could make it.
Inside the all-encompassing, roasting grid of the melting suit, Lonnie writhed. Faintly, as the suit failed, his screams came through—momentarily. Then they were gone as the fused, molten heap subsided lower ... lower ... began to trickle across the dazzling, ice-white marble of the floor.
Afterward, had Jason known anything at all about Lonnie's Philosophy, he'd have immediately supplied another "rule"; making a foursome out of the "Triple Ethic": "If you do it yourself, make sure you know what you're doing."