"As if something had weakened the crust of this world to release the magma," said Dumarest. "To let it fume upward in a fountain of bubbles and froth."
"Which cooled too quickly. You've noticed that? The surface formation is unique in my experience and is geologically impossible. No natural eruption or weathering could ever produce such a configuration."
"And the glow?"
"Natural minerals within the rock which fluoresce to the impact of radiation." She added, "It could be the same force which produces the hysteresis. Lopakhin told me about it. He also noticed that the glow isn't steady; it fades then brightens again. The deeper into the caverns we go the more pronounced the change becomes."
"Which means we're getting closer to the source of energy." Dumarest had observed the change. "One which pulses but I've not been able to establish its rhythm. There could be peaks and valleys. Times when this entire region could be almost dark and others when it might be filled with destructive energy."
"A mystery," she said. "One to add to the rest. Why no attacks since Hilary died? We could have passed through the habitable environment of Ryzam but, somehow, I doubt it. My skin crawls too much and too often. As if something is watching me. Waiting for me to get closer. You've hunted?"
Dumarest nodded.
"Then you know what I mean. A predator has its territory and it waits until its prey is within reach. When it is it strikes." Her hand slapped against her thigh with a flat, meaty sound. "We've had it too easy since Hilary went and it worries me."
"You'd rather be fighting for your life?"
"We do that every second of every day in one way or another. No. I want to see my enemy. The thing which gave Ryzam its reputation. We could turn round and go back and, with luck, make it to the rafts and on to the ship. If we've met all the dangers we could return with men and flamethrowers. Armored domes, machines, drills to blast an opening from the surface. It would take money, yes, but if the reward is high enough the money could be found. So what lies ahead, Earl? What is it that, once found, can never be left?"
In the lead Chenault lifted his arm. "There," he said. "There… there… there…"
The words slowed, slurred as the surrogate took a step, the manlike figure staggering, remaining upright to lean against the wall. Touching it Dumarest found the synthetic skin warmer than it should be. At his side Lopakhin swore as he eased open a panel to release a puff of acrid vapor.
"Heat! I told him not to move this thing too fast! Now he's burned out a junction!"
"Can you fix it?"
"I can try but Vosper was the engineer." Lopakhin looked around. They were in a rounded gallery ending in a triple junction of narrower passages. Chenault had pointed to the one on the right. "I'll need room so had better get down to it here. Space could be limited farther on. The light's good, too."
Blazing patches which shone with scintillant brightness to dispel all shadows. At the casket Toyanna was busy checking dials and registers, straightening to look at Dumarest with a worried frown.
"It's all right," he said reassuringly. "Just a shorted connection. It won't take long to repair." He glanced at the casket, the corpselike figure it contained. "How's Tama?"
"Alive-just." She echoed her fear. "But there's something else. The power's going. If the antigrav units fail we'll be stuck unless we can carry the entire weight."
"We can't."
"But-"
"There are five of us not counting the surrogate. One man must stay on board." Which left four to handle the burden, two of them women. Dumarest said, "You'll have to lighten it. Dump all emergency supplies and equipment. You'd better start doing it now. The radio-units can go first; when we move off we'll use a cable to link up the surrogate."
"Tama won't like that. He wants to maintain full mobility in order to guide us."
"He can do that verbally. In any case the surrogate can be put to better use. Get busy now. Stand guard, Mirza. Watch the rear. I'm going ahead to see what's in front of us."
Massak had preceded him. As Dumarest passed into the narrower passage he saw the mercenary standing lower down. He too had stripped to shorts and boots, the scars on his body making a livid tapestry against the rich darkness of his skin.
"Listen!" He held up a hand as Dumarest halted at his side. "Hear it?"
"No."
"Try again. Hard." Massak grunted as Dumarest shook his head. "It's gone now anyway."
"What was it?"
"A sound, high, thin, something like that made by a generator. But it had something extra to it. Something like-" Massak shook his head. "I can't describe it. Maybe it was just imagination." He looked at the passage with its rounded roof and concave floor. "This place can give you all sorts of ideas. Look at it-it's just like a burrow."
One which could have been made by a gigantic worm slithering through plastic magma or grinding its way through rock with adamantine teeth. Fancies enhanced by the silence, the smooth walls, the mounting tension as the party moved along what could easily become a trap.
"If anything comes at us, anything really big, that is, we wouldn't stand a chance." Massak gestured with his gun. "No niches," he explained. "No cracks to duck into. No side passages. We could be caught front and back and turned into pulp."
"If anything came," agreed Dumarest. "If we couldn't stop it."
"You don't think there's any danger?"
"Not from things as large as you're talking about."
"Maybe not," admitted the mercenary. "Things that big would have to eat and there's damn all around here that I can see. But that brings up another matter-where are all those who came this way before?"
"If any did."
"They must have done if they were following the lure of what's supposed to lie ahead. I've been trying to figure out these caverns and galleries and they seem to me to all be leading to a common point. Maybe Chenault's found a shortcut but, even so, others must have used it. So where are their bodies? Discarded equipment? Supplies? Clothing? We've left enough behind us and others must have done the same."
One, at least, had done more.
Dumarest saw it as they emerged into a vaulted chamber set with patches of brilliance, the mouth of a tunnel gaping opposite the one they had left. Close beside it, set upright against the wall, rested the unmistakable tracery of a skeleton.
"Bones!" Massak stared at the place, gun lifting with automatic reflex in his hand. "Someone died there."
"A woman." Toyanna stepped back after making her examination. "Look at the shape of the pelvis; the set of the thighs. The skull, too, bears feminine characteristics. And yet there's a strangeness about it. As if it wasn't wholly human."
Dumarest said, "Can you tell the age?"
"Of the woman? About middle-age, I'd say."
"No. How long it's been here."
"Impossible." Toyanna's shrug was expressive. "What we're looking at seems to be an imprint of the skeletal structure rather than the bones themselves. Something like a negative print-see how white they are against the dark background?"
Lopakhin said, "I've done work like this. You take an object, a leaf, flower, animal, insect- anything will do. You place it on a prepared and sensitized surface then expose it to a blast of high-intensity radiation. The result is an image of the object but one containing more detail than can normally be seen. A kind of aura." His hand lifted to rest on the stone. "See? This faint blurring following the bones. And here. And here." His fingers moved to halt over the pelvic area. "Could she have been pregnant?"