Far ahead, light flickered, dimmer, than his own. He wouldn’t have seen it, if it hadn’t been for the fact he was in darkness at the time. It was gone almost at once, but it encouraged him to believe that he was on the right track.
One thing worried him—none of the others that had fled from him had come down the passage. They should have followed the first—or come in behind him.
He glanced at his wrist watch. It would be time for the others to be going to their hammocks. Probably Lew would notice that he was gone. It wouldn’t bother him for a while—but Lew had been sleeping poorly lately. In another hour at the most, they’d look for his suit, and realize he was gone.
Would they know where to look? He thought it over, and decided they would have to—he’d talked about the city to them, he’d started to head for it when he found that the welder was missing; and they would realize that he had a legitimate grudge against the Martians he believed to be there. Sokolsky would guess, if none of the others did. The light would be burning long after that—and it wouldn’t take them long to break down the entrance, once they knew where to look.
He should have marked his passage. Then he looked down and grinned. He had marked it. The heavy space boots with their cleats were leaving an unmistakable mark that only a blind man could have missed.
He came to another side trail. Now he was less sure about the direction to take. But the light he had seen had been farther ahead, he was sure.
He walked on, counting his steps now, as he tried to estimate where he was. He must be beyond the limits of the ruined city now.
He was also deeper than he had expected to be. The incline was just beginning to level off. But that was all to the good. It meant he was finally coming to the real living quarters of the creatures. It would take caution then—though he doubted that they could hurt him in the suit.
He tried listening again. By now he should have come to something that would show he was on the right track. The creatures must have had trouble with the oxygen tanks for the welding equipment they had stolen. They should have left signs on the floor—but he hadn’t seen any.
Again, a light flashed briefly ahead, a bright, hot light. He blinked his eyes, and started forward at a run, but it disappeared almost immediately.
He stumbled over something, and went head-over-heels. For a second, fear clutched at him, until he tried the little light and found that it still worked. He looked back. On the floor lay a can of corned beef, half the paper torn off. It had been partly crushed with something, but no opening had been made.
They must have wondered about that. Or maybe the spies had managed to find out that humans put such things in their mouths. He kicked it aside, surer that he was on the right trail. .
But the constant groping through darkness was beginning to get on his nerves. Maybe he should have let the creature get away and gone back to the ship for help. What difference would it have made, as long as he knew how to find the entrance?
He could still go back, of course, but a streak of stubbornness refused to let him, now that he was so near.
Again, light flickered ahead, nearer this time. It was a dull red glow now.
The light was beginning to puzzle him. The air here wasn’t really any heavier than that on the surface, and no flame could burn in that low a level of oxygen. The creatures must have some form of chemical light, such as the glow of a firefly—but it would hardly be as bright as the one glimpse had shown.
It came again, as he was thinking of it—the dull, red glow again. And something moved in front of it, apparently carrying whatever gave off the light across an intersecting branch of the tunnel. These underground caverns must widen out eventually, but he wasn’t as concerned with that as with finding any of the inhabitants. The light offered a clue there.
He let out a shout, forgetting that it was nearly useless here, and went down the tunnel at a rapid rate, holding the switch closed to keep from stumbling over anything.
There was a startled chirping ahead of him, and one of the ululating shrieks which had given him the whim-whams before. This time he knew what was producing it, and it was bearable.
The light ahead was hard to see with his own bulb glowing, but he saw it as he turned the corner, darting around another corner. He leaped after it this time, disregarding the dangers that might lie on the floor of the tunnel. If he stumbled, he would have to stumble; if he was lucky, he’d find out what was going on.
Now he hit another straight stretch, with the creature closer, and a pale, red radiance barely visible before it. He leaped forward, trying to avoid bumping against the seven-foot ceiling. The creature shrieked briefly, and dropped the source of light. It darted into a dark side trail and seemed to vanish.
Chuck bent over for the light source and halted.
In the light of this small bulb, his own helmet lamp stood out against the blackness of the floor! Its filament was barely glowing now, indicating a short-circuit of some kind. But it was his, without any question. The dent in the top identified it without any possibility of a mistake.
The crew of the Eros would have a hard time finding him now!
CHAPTER 16
Lost in the Caverns
Chuck stood for a moment, looking at the useless lamp. It left him without any real choice. He would have to turn around and follow his footprints out of the tunnels, go back to the ship, and get help. With enough light and a few extra men, it shouldn’t take long to track down the creatures and locate the missing tools.
He switched on his *** Hide light again briefly, trying to estimate how much burning time was left in the battery. He could see no evidence to indicate the charge was running down, but he realized that his eyes might have grown accustomed to a change.
Again, it didn’t matter too much. He would simply have to flash it on in the briefest possible intervals and make sure his tracks led ahead. Once each fifty steps should be about right. With such intermittent use, even a well-used battery would last for a long time. The way out shouldn’t be hard to follow.
Another of the weird cries ran through the tunnel. He wondered if it might be some kind of signal concerning his presence. Well, let them come for him. It would save the trouble of trying to find them later.
The bravado was his first sign of fear. He stopped sharply, and tried to analyze it, but there was no reason behind it. He just knew that he was afraid again—not greatly, but at least unpleasantly.
He looked briefly at the ground for his footprints and headed down the tunnel at a quick trot, counting the steps to fifty. Again he flicked on the light, and checked his course. He was making better speed than he had coming down. The footprints led on plainly, without even a blurriness to indicate that other feet had used the path since he passed.
He had rechecked the path for the twentieth time and made the satisfactory round number of a thousand steps that finally lifted the little cloud of fear. After all, he was a civilized man with a background that had led man across space to another planet. These were only primitives—little humanoids that had gone down the long road from a medium cultural level to a lower one.
Again he reached the figure one thousand. This time he stopped to rest. He should have kept counting his steps on the way down, so that he’d have some way of knowing how far he still had to go.
He looked at his watch; it still pointed to midnight. It had stopped, and there was no way to get inside the plastic cuff of the space suit to wind it again. Look but don’t touch! He’d been getting careless about winding it when he went to bed, and now his carelessness was catching up with him.