CHAPTER VII

_In the Labyrinth_

Spent and shaken, the three passed onward into the cave. Harkness

searched his pockets for his neolite flash; found it--a tiny pencil

with a tip of glass--and the darkness of the inner cave was flooded

with light.

A box of food tablets was in a pocket of Chet's jacket, and there was

water that trickled in a tiny stream out of the rocks. It could have

been worse, Diane pointed out with forced gaiety. But Harkness, who

had gone back for a final look at the entrance to the cave, found it

difficult to smile.

He had found the entrance an opening no longer: it was sealed with a

giant web of ropy strands--a network, welded together to a glutinous

mesh. They were sealed in as effectively as if the opening were

closed by a thick door of steel.

They gathered fungus that grew in thready clumps on the walls, and

this served as a mattress to soften the rocky floor that must be their

bed. And Harkness sat silent in the darkness long after the others

were asleep--sat alone on guard, to think and to reach, at last, a

conclusion.

A cleavage in the rocks made a narrow crack to the outside world, and

through it the starlight filtered dimly. The thread of light grew

brilliantly golden--moonlight, a hundredfold more bright than

moonlight on Earth. And he realized that the source of light was their

own globe, Earth, shining far through space!

It lighted the cave with a mellow glow. It shone upon the closed eyes

of the sleeping girl, and touched lightly upon the rounded softness of

a lovely face beneath a tangle of brown curls. Harkness stared long

and soberly at the picture she made, and he thought of many things.

No parasite upon society was this girl. He had known such; but her

ready wit, her keen grasp of affairs, had been evident in their talks

on the journey they had made. They had stamped her as one who was able

to share in the work and responsibilities of a world where men and

women worked together. Yet there was nothing of the hardness that so

many women showed. And now she was altogether feminine, and entirely

lovely.

* * * * *

Not far away, Chet Bullard was sleeping heavily. His hand, injured

painfully when they tore it from the clinging mass, had been bandaged

by Diane. It troubled him now, and he flung one arm outward. His hand

touched that of the girl, and Harkness saw the instant quiet that came

upon him at the touch. And Diane--her lips were smiling in her sleep.

They had been much together, those two; theirs had been a ready,

laughing comradeship. It had troubled Harkness, but now he put all

thought of self aside.

"This trip," he thought, "can end only in disaster--if it has not

already done so. What a fool I was to bring these two!" And: "If I

want to risk my own life," he told himself bitterly, "that's my own

affair. But for Chet, and Diane, with their lives ahead of them--" His

determination was quickly reached.

He would go back. Somehow, some way, he would get them to the ship.

They would return to Earth. And then.... His plans were vague. But he

knew he could interest capital; he knew that this new world, that was

one great mine of raw metals, would not go long unworked. The metallic

colorations in rock walls and mountains had fairly shouted of rich

ores and untold wealth.

Yes, they would go back, but he would return. He would put from his

mind all thought of this girl; he would forget forever those nebulous

plans that had filled him with hope for a happiness beyond all hoping.

And he would come back here prepared for conquest.

He put aside all speculation as to what other horrible forms of life

the little world might hold: he would be prepared to deal with them.

But he still wondered if there were people. He had hoped to find some

human life.

And this hope, too, left him; his sense of this globe as an

undeveloped world was strong upon him. The monsters; the tropical,

terrible vegetation; the very air itself--all breathed of a world that

was young. There had not been time for the long periods of evolution

through which humanity came.

He tried to tell himself of the wealth that would be his; tried to

feel the excitement that should follow upon such plans. But he could

only feel a sense of loss, of something precious that was gone.

Diane--named for the moon: she seemed more precious now to the lonely

man than all else on moon or Earth. She could never be his; she never

had been. It was Chet upon whom the gods and Diane had smiled. And

Chet deserved it.

Only in this last conviction did he find some measure of consolation

during the long night.

* * * * *

"We will rip the big web out with detonite," Harkness told the others

when morning came. "But I want to get the spider, too."

A touch upon the web with a stick brought an instant response. Again

they saw in all its repulsiveness the thing that seemed a creature of

some horrible dream. The eyes glared, while hairy feelers seized the

web and shook it in furious rage. Harkness, fearing another discharge

of the nauseating, viscous liquid, withdrew with the others far back

in the cave.

"Wait," he told them. "I have a plan."

The creature vanished, and Harkness went cautiously forward to the

web. He took a detonite cartridge from his belt and placed it on the

floor close to the ropy strands. Another, and another, until he had a

close-packed circle of the deadly things. Then he placed a heavy,

metallic piece of rock beside them and proceeded, with infinite care,

to build a tower.

One irregular block upon another: it was like a child at play with his

toys. Only now the play was filled with deadly menace. The stones

swayed, then held in precarious, leaning uncertainty; the topmost was

directly above the cartridges on the floor.

"Back!" he ordered the others, "and lie flat on the floor. I must

guess at the amount of explosive for the job."

Chet and Diane were safe as Harkness weighed a fragment of metal in

his hand. One throw--and he must not hit the tower he had built....

The rock struck into the network of cords; he saw it clinging where it

struck, and saw the web shaking with the blow.

Over his shoulder, as he ran, he glimpsed the onrush of the beast.

Again the eyes were glaring, again the feelers were shaking furiously

at the web. They touched the leaning stones!

He had reached the place where Chet and Diane lay and saw the

beginning of the tower's fall; and in the split second of its falling

he threw himself across the body of the prostrate girl to shield her

from flying fragments of stone. A blast of air tore at him; his ears

were numbed with the thunder of the blast--a thunder that ended with a

crashing of stone on stone....

* * * * *

Slowly he recovered his breath; then raised himself to his feet to

look toward the entrance. It would be open now, the way cleared. But,

instead of sunlight, he saw utter dark. Where the mouth of the cave

had been was blackness--and nothing else!

He fumbled for his flash, and stood in despairing silence before what

the light disclosed.

The rock was black and shining about the mouth of the cavern. It had

split like glass. In shattered fragments it filled the forward part of

the cave. The whole roof must have fallen, and a crashing slide above

had covered all.

Chet was beside him; Harkness dared not look toward the girl coming

expectantly forward.

"We'll use more of the same," Chet suggested: "we will blast our way

out."

"And bring down more rock with each charge," Harkness told him

tonelessly. "This means we are--"

Diane had overheard. Harkness' pause had come too late.

"Yes?" she encouraged. "This means we are entombed?--buried here? Is

that it?"

Her voice was quiet; her eyes, in the light of the little flash, were

steady in their look upon the man who was leader of the expedition.

Diane Vernier might shudder with horror before some obscene beast--she

would tremble with delight, too, at sight of some sudden beauty--but

she was not one to give way to hysteria when a situation must be

faced. No despair could be long-lived under the spell of those eyes,

brave and encouraging.

"No," said Walter Harkness: "we will find some way to escape. This is

blocked. We will follow the cave back and see where it leads. There

must be other outlets. We're not quitting now." He smiled with a

cheerful confidence that gave no hint of being assumed, and he led the

way with a firm step.

* * * * *

Diane followed as usual, close to Chet. But her eyes were upon their

leader; they would have repaid him for a backward look.

To a mineralogist this tunnel that nature had pierced through the rock

would have been an endless delight, but to a man seeking escape from

his living tomb it brought no such ecstasy. The steady, appraising

glance of Harkness was everywhere--darting ahead, examining the walls,

seeking some indication, some familiar geological structure, that

might be of help.

He stopped once to kick contemptuously at a vein of quartz. Three feet

in thickness--and it crumbled to fragments under his foot to release a

network of gold.

"Rotten with it," he said.

And the only comment came from Chet: "A fat lot of good it does us!"

he replied.

The cavern branched and branched again; it opened to a great room

higher than their light could reach; it narrowed to leave apertures

through which they crawled like moles; it became a labyrinth of

passages from which there seemed no escape. Each turn, each new

opening, large or small--it was always the same: Harkness praying

inaudibly for a glimpse of light that would mean day; and,

instead--darkness!--and their own pencil of light so feeble against

the gloom ahead....