Page 8 (1/2)

The tall man from Earth and his short companion from Mars faced that darkness and marched forward into the bowels of Mercury

In the radiance of their suit-lights, Bigman looked curiously about at the tunnel, which resembled those he had seen on the Moon Rounded out s procedures, it stretched out straight and even The walls were curved and htly flattened above and quite flattened below, h the air in his suit He could sense Lucky&039;s steps only as a s rock It was not quite sound, but to a person who had passed as ful He could "hear" the vibration of solid material much as ordinary Earthmen could hear the vibration of air which is called "sound"

Periodically they passed columns of rock which had been left unblasted and which served as buttresses for the layers of rock between the tunnel and the surface Again this was like the mines on the Moon, except that the buttresses were both thicker and more nuravity, small as it o and a half times that of the Moon

Tunnels branched off thewhich they traveled Lucky, who see in order to coes of one-time human occupancy: the bolts where illumo-plateswith the light of day, the faint netic relays must once have afforded traction for ore cars, occasional side pockets where rooht pause to eat at field kitchens or where saht be assayed

All dismantled now, all torn down, only bare rock left

But Big on such rew concerned at the lack of action He had not come out here oman Cover"

He said it quietly, with no special eman knehat it meant He shoved his radio control to the particular notch which activated a shield for the carrier wave and scraulation equipman had added the scra the suits alht

Big a little faster When Lucky called for a tight, scraer was near Nearer, at any rate He said, "What&039;s up, Lucky?"

"It&039;s time to talk" Lucky&039;s voice had a faintly far-off sound, as though it was co indeterminately from all directions That was due to the inevitable lack of perfection of the part of the receiving unscrambler, which always left a small fraction of "noise"

Lucky said, "This is Tunnel 7a, according to the chart It leads back by a fairly si to the surface I&039;ll be going there"

Biget to the surface," and Lucky laughed lightly "Why else?"

"What for?"

"In order to travel along the surface to the hangar and the Shooting Starr When I went to the ship last timan chewed that over and said slowly, "Does that ht I&039;ll be heading for the big Sun I can&039;t get lost, at least, since I need only follow the coronal glow on the horizon It makes it very siht it was the mines that have the Sirians in them Didn&039;t you prove that at the banquet?"

"No, Bigman, I didn&039;t prove it I just fast-talked it into sounding as though it were proven"

"Then why didn&039;t you say so to ued this out before, I don&039;t want to go into it I can&039;t risk your losing your te down here was part of a deeper plan and if, for any reason, Cook had irritated you, you ht out"

"I would not, Lucky It&039;s just that you hate to say anything at all till you&039;re all ready"

"There&039;s that too," admitted Lucky "Anyway, that&039;s the situation I wanted everyone to think I was going into the iest notion of heading for Sun-side The safest way of seeing to it was to ht any differently"

"Can you tellsecret?"

"I can tell you this I have a strong notion that soe I don&039;t believe in the Sirian theory"

Big down here in the ree with Dr Cook It is just too unlikely that Sirius would put all the effort that would be involved in setting up a secret base on Mercury just to achieve a bit of sabotage It would be , they would bribe an Earthman to do it After all, who slashed the inso-suit? That, at least, can&039;t be blaested there are Sirians inside the Do for a traitor, Lucky?"

"I&039; for the saboteur Hefor reasons of his own I hope the answer is on the Sun-side And I hope, further an invasion of theti an uncomfortable reception for me"

"What answer do you expect?"

"I&039;ll knohen I find it"

"Okay," said Bigo"

"Hold on, there," cried Lucky in honest perturbation "Great Galaxy, boy! I said I&039; There&039;s only one inso-suit You&039;ll stay here"

For the first tinificance of the pronouns Lucky had used sank into Bigman&039;s consciousness Lucky had said "I," "I" Not once had he said "we" And yet Big association, had assumed that "I" meant "we"

"Lucky!" he cried, torn between outrage and dismay "Why do I have to stay?"

"Because I want the men at the Dome to be sure that we&039;re here You keep the chart and follow the route we talked about or so like it Report back to Cook every hour Tell them where you are, what you see, tell the truth; you don&039;t have toup-except that you say I&039;man considered that "Well, what if they want to talk to you?"

"Tell them I&039;m busy Yell that you think you&039;ve just seen a Sirian Say you&039;ve got to cut off Make up so I&039;ht Sands of Mars, you&039;ll go to Sun-side and have all the fun, and I&039;ll just wander around in the dark playing ga in the ht"

"I&039;ll bet you are this ti down here"

Lucky couldn&039;t resist a joke "There&039;s the freezing death Cook spoke about You could investigate that"

Bigman didn&039;t see the humor He said, "Aw, shut up"

There was a short pause Then Lucky placed his hand on the other&039;s shoulder "All right, that wasn&039;t funny, Bigman, and I&039;ain in no tiht Drop the soft soap You say I&039;ve got to do it, so I&039;ll do it Only you&039;ll probably get sunstroke withoutox"

Lucky laughed "I&039;ll try to be careful" He turned down tunnel 7a but had not taken two steps when Bigman called out