Chapter VIII

Jim knew nothing more until he struggled up again from the vast depths of darkness. This time, his mind felt blessedly alive and buoyant and free. He simply lay there against the soft cushion and let the strength flow back to him.

He sat suddenly erect. He was alone, and the car had stopped. He looked out into the white expanse of the Polar Cap once more.

He hurried to the door, and was relieved to see the rest of the men gathered outside, staring at something and talking excitedly. He joined them. Conley greeted him and pointed silently.

Barely a mile to the north, from whence they had come, a great greenish display suffused the lowering sky.

"That started a moment ago," Conley said. "I think we got out of there just in time."

Hardly had he spoken, when all of the ice-capped terrain beneath the light collapsed into a vast hollow, miles wide. It happened silently, abruptly; seconds later faint rumbling shook the ground. It was final. The greenish display had vanished and only the hollow remained, as if a giant had plunged his thumb into a rotten apple.

Conley sighed and turned away. "When I think of poor Wessel and the others, buried a mile below there--"

"They got," Jim replied caustically, "just what they asked for. You'd better hope that entity is as dead as they are!"

"No doubt about that. But I can't understand it, Jim. I thought sure we were lost, when it was brow-beating us there in the plaza. What happened after that? All I remember is running for the car."

"What happened," Jim replied softly, "is that a wild hunch of mine worked. Did you ever indulge in Martian _tsith_ stems, Conley? It's horrible, vile stuff; makes anyone, except an addict, violently ill. And it hits you suddenly, like a barrage of rocket-blasts. Well, I gave a whole pouch full--Kaarji's--to that Dim-Ing! D'you know, despite it being an other-dimensional entity, it had some very human qualities? Apparently it was curious, as well as egotistic; it must have investigated and then absorbed those _tsith_ stems, and it became violently ill--at just the right time for us!"

Spurlin had been trying desperately to get the motors started again, but to no avail. Now he approached the others with a worried frown.

"Those motors are so constructed that they can work in two ways. First, they can operate from a direct electronic beam--that's how Bhruulo controlled the car from a distance, and that's the way we've come as far as we have now. But with the destruction of M'Tonak, all the beams are gone!"

"Then you mean--we're stranded here?"

Conley pictured hundreds of miles of ice still lying before them. He remembered that the Cap had already started its break-up, and no man could ever get across it now. Not afoot!

"On the other hand," Spurlin was saying hopelessly, "the motors _should_ work from the electronic emanations of that new metal we found. Even a tiny amount of it. But," he waved his hand to the north, "there it all lies buried and we'll never get to it in a million years!"

Defeat was in his voice.

For a moment the men milled about, looking at each other helplessly, before Jim remembered something.

"I've gone through too much," he grinned, "in the past few days to let a minor thing like this stymie me." With a feigned nonchalance, he reached into his pocket and drew forth a piece of metal. It was the rounded medallion which Kaarji had given him, and he'd forgotten until now.

Spurlin's eyes lighted, he seized it eagerly and went back to work.

Jim looked again toward the vast hollow to the north, and he spoke softly to Conley standing beside him:

"Spurlin's wrong, though. We'll get to that metal again, and Spurlin will see his super spaceship come true. It'll be a tremendous mining job, but--well, at least we know the metal's there, and it'll wait for us."

The sudden hum of the motors was a welcome sound in their ears, and minutes later they were speeding smoothly back to the south.