Another second. The hand moved down, switching in the current. The lightning-sharp blade of the electric ray.⁠ ⁠… A faint crack like a shiver, in the tubes of the Machine.⁠ ⁠… The prone body, covered with a light phosphorescent smoke; then suddenly, under the eyes of all, it began to melt⁠—to melt, to dissolve with terrible speed. And then nothing; just a pool of chemically pure water which only a moment ago was so red and pulsated in his heart.⁠ ⁠…

All this was simple; all of us were familiar with the phenomenon, dissociation of matter⁠—yes, the splitting of the atoms of the human body! Yet every time we witnessed it, it seemed a miracle; it was a symbol of the superhuman power of the Well-Doer.