Read "That Worlds May Live" by Nelson S. Bond online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
As Borisu's hand depressed the fateful button, a sort of sick paralysis seemed to fall upon almost everyone in the control turret. It was as though all realized that a moment hence in one brief, blinding flame would vanish all for which a lifetime of struggle had been spent. Joy and sorrow, happiness and care. hope, love, ambition. all these were to merge as one in the final erasing of life's futile slate.
Even Borisu, high-minded a patriot as he proclaimed himself to be, stood stricken by the irrevocable enormity of what he had done. Mad laughter froze on his lips, panic glazed his eyes, and the hand which held the threatening Haemholtz faltered and dropped to his side.