Part 7 (2/2)

He was answered by a weirdly m.u.f.fled call--from the south! Had the animals found a new exit? Was this niche more than just a niche? A cave of some length, or even a pa.s.sage running back into the interior of the peaks? With that faint hope spurring him, Shann bent again over Thorvald, able now to make out the other's huddled form. Then he drew the torch from the inner loop of his coat and pressed the lowest stud.

His eyes smarted in answer to that light, watered until tears patterned the grime and dust on his cheeks. But he could make out what lay before them, a hole leading into the cliff face, the hole which might furnish the door to escape.

The Survey officer moved, levering himself up, his eyes screwed tightly shut.

”Lantee?”

”Here. And there's a tunnel--right behind you. The wolverines went that way....”

To his surprise there was a thin ghost of a smile on Thorvald's usually straight-lipped mouth. ”And we'd better be away before visitors arrive?”

So he, too, must have thought his way through the sequence of past action to the same conclusion concerning the Throg movements.

”Can you see, Lantee?” The question was painfully casual, but a note in it, almost a reaching for rea.s.surance, cut for the first time through the wall which had stood between them from their chance meeting by the wrecked s.h.i.+p.

”Better now. I couldn't when I first came to,” Shann answered quickly.

Thorvald opened his eyes, but Shann guessed that he was as blind as he himself had been, He caught at the officer's nearer hand, drawing it to rest on his own belt.

”Grab hold!” Shann was giving the orders now. ”By the look of that opening we had better try crawling. I've a torch on at low----”

”Good enough.” The other's fingers fumbled on the band about Shann's slim waist until they gripped tight at his back. He started on into the opening, drawing Thorvald by that hold with him.

Luckily, they did not have to crawl far, for shortly past the entrance the fault or vein they were following became a pa.s.sage high enough for even the tall Thorvald to travel without stooping. And then only a little later he released his hold on Shann, reporting he could now see well enough to manage on his own.

The torch beam caught on a wall and awoke from there a glitter which hurt their eyes--a green-gold cl.u.s.ter of crystals. Several feet on, there was another flash of embedded crystals. Those might promise priceless wealth, but neither Terran paused to examine them more closely or touch their surfaces. From time to time Shann whistled. And always he was answered by the wolverines, their calls coming from ahead. So the men continued to hope that they were not walking into a trap from which the Throgs could extract them.

”Snap off your torch a moment!” Thorvald ordered.

Shann obeyed. The subdued light vanished. Yet there was still light to be seen--ahead and above.

”Front door,” Thorvald observed. ”How do we get up?”

The torch showed them that, a narrow ladder of ledges branching off when the pa.s.sage they followed took a turn to the left and east. Afterward Shann remembered that climb with wonder that they had actually made it, though their advance had been slow, pa.s.sing the torch from one to another to make sure of their footing.

Shann was top man when a last spurt of effort enabled him to draw himself out into the open, his hands raw, his nails broken and torn. He sat there, stupefied with his own weariness, to stare about.

Thorvald called impatiently, and Shann reached for the torch to hold it for the officer. Then Thorvald crawled out; he, too, looked around in dull surprise.

On either side, peaks cut high into the amber of the sky. But this bowl in which the men had found refuge was rich in growing things. Though the trees were stunted, the gra.s.s grew almost as high here as it did on the meadows of the lowlands. Quartering the pocket valley, galloped the wolverines, expressing in that wild activity their delight in this freedom.

”Good campsite.”

Thorvald shook his head. ”We can't stay here.”

And, to underline that gloomy prophesy, there issued from that hole through which they had just come, m.u.f.fled and broken, but still threatening, the howl of the Throgs' hound.

The Survey officer caught the torch from Shann's hold and knelt to flash it into the interior of the pa.s.sage. As the beam slowly circled that opening, he held out his other arm, measuring the size of the aperture.

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