They noted the presence of the harmoniums, but could find nothing encouraging in the presence of the creatures there. The creatures seemed ghastly.
Unk and Boaz didn’t really believe they were in such a place. Not believing it was the thing that saved them from panic.
They returned to their ship.
“O.K.,” said Boaz calmly, “there has been some mistake. We have wound up too deep in the ground. We got to fly back on up to where them buildings are. I tell you frankly Unk, it don’t seem like to me this is even Earth we’re in. There’s been some mistake, like I say, and we got to ask the folks in the buildings where we are.”
“O.K.,” said Unk. He licked his lips.
“Just push that old on button,” said Boaz, “and up we fly like a bird.”
“O.K.,” said Unk.
“I mean,” said Boaz, “up there, the folks in the buildings may not even know about all this down here. Maybe we discovered something they’ll be just amazed about.”
“Sure,” said Unk. His soul felt the pressure of the miles of rock above. And his soul felt the true nature of their predicament. On all sides and overhead were passages that branched and branched and branched. And the branches forked to twigs, and the twigs forked to passages no larger than a human pore.
Unk’s soul was right in feeling that not one branch in ten thousand led all the way to the surface.
The space ship, thanks to the brilliantly-conceived sensing gear on its bottom, had sensed its way easily down and down and down, through one of the very few ways in — down and down and down one of the very few ways out.
What Unk’s soul hadn’t suspected yet was the congenital stupidity of the pilot-navigator when it came to going up. It had never occurred to the designers that the ship might encounter problems in going tip. All Martian ships, after all, were meant to take off from an unobstructed field on Mars, and to be abandoned after landing on Earth. Consequently, there was virtually no sensing equipment on the ship for hazards overhead.
“So long, old cave,” said Boaz.
Casually, Unk pressed the on button.
The pilot-navigator hummed.
In ten Earthling seconds, the pilot-navigator was warm.
The ship left the cave floor with whispering ease, touched a wall, dragged its rim up the wall with a grinding, tearing scream, bashed its dome on an overhead projection, backed off, bashed its dome again, backed off, grazed the projection, climbed whisperingly again. Then came the grinding scream again — this time from all sides.
All upward motion had stopped.
The ship was wedged in solid rock.
The pilot-navigator whimpered.It sent a wisp of mustard-colored smoke up through the floor-boards of the cabin.
The pilot-navigator stopped whimpering.
It had overheated, and overheating was a signal for the pilot-navigator to extricate the ship from a hopeless mess. This it proceeded to do — grindingly. Steel members groaned. Rivets snapped like rifle shots.
At last the ship was free.
The pilot-navigator knew when it was licked. It flew the ship back down to the cave floor, landing with a kiss.
The pilot-navigator shut itself off.
Unk pushed the on button again.
Again the ship blundered up into a blind passage, again retreated, again settled to the floor and shut itself off.
The cycle was repeated a dozen times, until it was plain that the ship would only bash itself to pieces. Already its frame was badly sprung.
When the ship settled to the cave floor for the twelfth time, Unk and Boaz went to pieces. They cried.
“We’re dead, Unk — we’re dead!” said Boaz. “I’ve never been alive that I can remember,” said Unk brokenly. “I thought I was finally going to get some living done.”
Unk went to a porthole, looked out with streaming eyes.
He saw that the creatures nearest the porthole had outlined in aquamarine a perfect, pale yellow letter T.
The making of a T was well within the limits of probability for brainless creatures distributing themselves at random. But then Unk saw that the T was preceded by a perfect S. And the S was preceded by a perfect B.