"No. If I can't find a way out of here in four hours— Well, I won't sit here and wait for the end. I'm going to explore. Coming?"
"I guess so," Skeel agreed. "Not that I think we'll find another exit, for we won't. But walking helps me to think, and I know there must be a way out of this!"
CHAPTER IV
They walked side by side in silence, entered joining tunnels and adjacent caves but were careful to remember the way back. Everywhere the walls were lighted by the button-creatures but nowhere was there an entrance to the outside. Not that it would do them any good. They both realized that now. The night horrors would be out there everywhere, waiting for new victims.
"You said walking helped you to think,' 'she said dully. "Are you thinking?"
"Yes."
"What about?"
He stopped, turned suddenly to face her. She was startled by a new perplexed look on his face.
"I've been thinking things over from the beginning," Skeel said gruffly "You say you came out here to kill me. You've had plenty of chance."
"But I didn't, and you can't understand it. There is a code, after all. I understand now what Commander Anders meant." She spoke softly, almost to herself. They walked in silence for a minute then she added as an afterthought:
"You had your chance, too. Back there when I fainted—"
"Do you think," Skeel almost snarled, "I'd fire an electro-beam here in the caves, where these light-creatures mean our very lives?"
"There are other ways" She looked steadily at him. "You might have opened all my oxygen tanks."
"Didn't think of it." He turned his face away abruptly. "Quit bothering me, I'm still trying to think."
"You can think later," she was insistent. "Tell me one thing, Skeel. What made you turn killer? You once had the best record in the Patrol!"
"I'm still the best man in the Patrol!"
"No you're not, Skeel."
"Damn you, I—" He stopped.
Then in a voice scarcely audible: "I have a reason. I've never told my story to anyone."
"You almost told Anders. I was in his office that day."
"Anders is a fool!"
"I'd like you to tell me." There was a way she said it, a certain tone in her voice that hinted of feeling. Perhaps even, of understanding.
He was suddenly speaking, pouring out his story in a fierce rush, of words as if he wanted to finish before that awful throbbing pain came again.
"It was in the early days when the Mars mines were opening. Lawless, bloody days. The Patrol received news that a freighter was being looted just a few hours from Earth. We got out there fast — too fast. Sixteen of us. The pirates hadn't yet left the drifting hulk. We walked into an ambush and there was nothing to do but give up without a struggle. They removed our weapons, then without warning began burning us down with electros. I dropped and played dead, while all about me my friends were really dying! It was all over in seconds, but I can still hear their dying screams and the hiss of the electros.
"I think something snapped inside of me. I was in a mental hospital for days. When I came out I swore a terrible oath. I swore to avenge my fifteen friends, to the last man! Any criminal would serve the purpose. There was a bitter hatred in me for all of them. I guess you know the rest. Since then I've always worked alone, and I've never given any criminal quarter. I've killed, yes. Fourteen times. I've almost reached my goal!"
He stopped, and her eyes were steadily upon him. "But will that be the end, Jim Skeel?"
He didn't answer.
"I remember something Anders said that day—"
"I remember it too!" he whispered. "God knows I remember, and it's haunted me ever since. He said any normal man would squirm at the thing I'd done! Your brother, Miss Miller— he was innocent — but God help me, I feel no remorse! For the very first time, this thing frightens me!"
He expected her to answer — to say something, anything — but she was silent. For a long time Skeel sat motionless on the floor of the cave, fists pressed hard against his temples.
Nadia glanced up at the little dial above her eyes, inside the oxygen helmet. "Less than three hours now," she announced.
Skeel rose to his feet. "Come on," he said calmly. "I know the way out now."
"Out of these caves, do you mean?" Again her eyes were upon him steadily, those blue eyes that held something less than a crystal hardness now.
Skeel looked away. "Yes," he said. "Yes, that's what I mean."
They walked back to the cave entrance where the darkness surged in. But Skeel stopped just short of it. Approaching the cave wall, he touched one of the button-creatures. Instantly its light went out. Slowly, gingerly he detached it from the wall. It was rather gelatinous, he noticed, but was equipped with tiny, barely discernible sucker-cups.
Holding the grayish thing in his hand, Skeel approached Nadia and reached out toward her space-suited figure. She shrank back with a little shudder of loathing.
"Hold still!" Skeel demanded. "It's not going to hurt you, and it may save your life!"
He placed it on her shoulder where it remained quiescent for about ten seconds. Then it changed into a little disk of light again, like a miniature beacon.
"You see, it works! I should have thought of this before. Walk around! Your natural stride."
Nadia walked. At her second step the thing blinked off. She waited until it came on again, then carefully tip-toed around the cave. This time the creature's light stayed on.
Skeel nodded. "This isn't going to be fun, but it's the only way! We've got to plaster each other with those things until we become walking pillars of light! Then we'll tip-toe out through the darkness, through those slinking nightmare things until we reach my cruiser. It'll be an ordeal, agony. Think you can do it, Miller?"
She nodded, suppressing a shudder at the thought of those gelatinous blobs covering her body.
"All right," Skeel said. "You go to work on me first. Place them on my arms, shoulders and torso. But cover every inch! The more light we have, the easier we'll get through those beasts out there."
She went to work, biting her lip every time she touched one of the light-creatures; but before she was through, she had overcome her repugnance. Skeel was soon bathed in a brilliant white halo from the waist up.
"I think I know the secret of these things," Skeel said as he busied himself decorating her. They must come out onto the surface when the sun is there. They store up enough light energy to last them through the dark period. Somehow they assimilate the heat energy. This is cold light." As a finishing touch he placed some of the things in a little crown of light around her helmet.
"Now for the real test," he pronounced grimly. "We'll walk side by side. Don't get nervous, Miller, and above all walk slowly, on tip-toe. If these things go out, it's our finish!"
Like figures in a slow-motion film they moved across the cave toward the outer darkness.
Immediately they knew it was going to be a nightmare of agony. The wall of night seemed to flutter before them and then recede. Receding with the darkness, too, were half-seen grayish shapes close to the ground. But behind and all around them the darkness closed in again. The night creatures closed in too, staying just beyond the little circle of light.
Their tentacles were long and sensitive and reached in close to the ground where the light hardly shone. One of them whipped against Skeel's ankles, and he felt the strength of it. He heard Nadia gasp and knew the same thing had happened to her. But they didn't stop in their slow, tip-toeing stride.