"All right then, tell me later." Thorinn retreated to the nearest light-ring. "Now, if I press down on this, the engine will come?"
"Yes."
"And it will not harm me?"
"No."
Thorinn took a long breath. There was something about this that he liked very little. Nevertheless he leaned, put his hand flat on the edge of the ring and pressed tentatively downward. Nothing happened. He pushed harder, but succeeded only in pressing himself away from the ring. At length, leaning both hands on the ring and throwing his weight forward, he felt the metal give. The whole ring, or at any rate the part of it he could see, sank into the floor of the tunnel, then slowly rose again. His weight was so little that he could not hold it down.
"Thorinn, I must ask you a question."
"Yes?"
"What is good for a man?"
"Why—I don't know, not being hurt or killed, I suppose, and not being sick, and having enough to eat. And living a long time, and having adventures, and becoming rich."
"What is having adventures?"
"Oh, meeting dangers and overcoming them."
"But in meeting dangers it is possible to be hurt or killed, and to be sick, and not to have enough to eat. And if a man is killed when he is young, then he cannot live a long time and may not become rich."
"That may be so, but a man must live like a man, or what's the point?"
"I don't know, Thorinn."
They waited until Thorinn's muscles began to grow stiff. He was beginning to realize again that he was hungry and thirsty. He unwrapped his pack and ate. When he had finished and drunk from the jug, he stood up and looked both ways along the tunnel. "The engine is not coming," he said.
"Shall I tell you more about the small pieces that all things are made from?" asked the box.
"No. You were wrong about the engine," said Thorinn with some satisfaction, and he picked up the box and slung it over his shoulder. Now he had to decide which way to go. The more he thought about it, the less he liked the idea of faring to the bottom of the Underworld. It would take him long enough as it was to get back to the Midworld, even if he could manage to go upward in spite of the geas. His best hope, it seemed to him, was to find some passage that went slanting up and down, always more up than down; the geas had never prevented him from using such passages.
He turned away from the shaft intersection and began loping down the tunnel. What if there were no shaft within ten thousand ells that led up and not down? Somewhere there must be one, and eventually he would find it.
Presently he thought he saw a flicker of light in the center of the eye of darkness at the end of the tunnel. He stopped to look at it, and in a moment he was sure: the winking dot was just perceptibly larger, brighter. The box said abruptly, "The engine is coming."
"I see it," said Thorinn, setting down his burdens. The dot swelled to a tiny circle. In the circle was a shape he could not quite make out. It did not look like one of the smooth eggs the box had shown him; it was angular, spiny. The flickering of the light rings became visible as the thing swelled nearer.
"It is the wrong kind of engine," said the box suddenly. "It may be bad for you, Thorinn." Thorinn stared wildly around. The shaft intersection was too far away; there was no place to run. Carrying his bundles, he ran up the smooth curve of the tunnel, leaped, clung to the side of the nearest light-ring. His bundles and the talking box hindered him, and he pushed them out of the way, but not before he saw a vast shape come drifting up the tunnel with dust fountaining under it. It had clusters of lights, great blank eyes, half-folded hands with pincers at the ends of them. He flattened himself to the wall behind the ring. The great shape darted past him in a cloud of dust. A few hundred ells beyond, it slowed and settled to the floor. All its eyes seemed to be in front. Thorinn cautiously slid himself over the top of the ring, pulled his bundles after, and flattened himself to the wall as before.
There were faint sounds and movements beyond, sighing of air, clicks, then a grating noise. Thorinn guessed that the thing was looking about to see what had pressed the ring down. Silence. Thorinn held his breath, listening. A gray shape loomed over the ring, then a light, and another, and another. Thorinn sprang up in alarm. He got his good leg under him, kicked as the gray pincers taller than himself came forward. The thing tilted away from him, and he saw that it was a hollow structure of metal tubes, open above but with a complexity of solid parts below, the arms, pincers, lights, and eyes all attached to a sort of shield. The pincers loomed toward him.
When he awoke, he was in a moving place and his head hurt. He felt confused and tired, and it was easier to lie where he was, on a narrow bed, than to get up and worry about it. Beyond a large square-cornered window, the tunnel wall streamed past swiftly and smoothly; the room swayed a little. He closed his eyes.
Presently he felt better and sat up, but then he was dizzy and he sat cross-legged on the bed with his head in his hands. The bed was a narrow pallet on the floor. The smooth, rapid motion of the room continued.
He raised his head and looked around. At the back of the room there was a dark green basin with water trickling into it. His pallet was along one side, with another window over it which he had not noticed before. On the gray floor lay his bundles, the talking box, and his sword. Light came from a square of crystal in the ceiling. There were two round crystals in the front wall, also, but they were dark. He lurched to the basin, knelt, and drank until he could hold no more, then splashed a little water on his face. Beside the basin was a round hole in the floor. There was an odd smell in the room, like the stale of wild animals. Still feeling dizzy, he went back to the cot and sat down.
"Box," he said. "What happened?"
"The engine made you sleep and took you."
" 'Took me.' What do you mean? Took me captive, I suppose."
"Yes, took you captive. Then that engine took you to a place where it met this engine, and put you in it, still sleeping."
Thorinn considered all this, fuzzily. He felt that he should be frightened, but he was not, only interested.
"Where is it taking me?" he asked.
"I don't know."
Thorinn shut his eyes and thought. He remembered the engine coming at him with its pincers wide, lights and eyes blazing—then nothing; try as he would, he could not remember the rest. "How did it put me to sleep?"
"It made a kind of air that puts men to sleep when they breathe it." The box began showing him a picture of the engine, and then of smaller and smaller parts of it, but Thorinn said, "Later." With an effort, he leaned over to pick up the sword in its scabbard and tried to put it through his belt; but that was too much trouble, and he laid it on the pallet. Beyond the window, the light-rings of the tunnel flashed by. If he followed one with his eyes for an instant, he could see it before it disappeared, but otherwise they all blurred together. Yet there was no wind. With another effort, he turned and put his hand to the window over his cot. It was filled with a sheet of crystal so clear that he could not see it. "Box," he said, "you've been the death of me."
The box was silent.
"Why did you tell me the engine would take me safely to the bottom?"
"When I was made, that was true."
Thorinn turned this over in his mind and could make nothing of it. "Why isn't it true now, then?"
"I don't know."
"Then what use are you?"
"I can turn one talk into another talk. I can answer questions about things that are not different since I was made. I can show pictures. I can—"
"Enough," said Thorinn. "Leave me alone now, can't you?"
"Yes, Thorinn." The box fell silent.
Thorinn got up and eased himself above the round hole in the floor, and drank more water, and lay down again. Presently he slept. When he awoke, he was hungry and his wounds throbbed. He ate some of the meat from his bundles and drank from the basin. He tried a little of the fruit he had brought, but it was rotting and he threw it down the hole. He felt anxious and tight; whatever it was that had made him sleepy before seemed to have worn off. He noticed a thin crack in the wall, outlining an upright oblong beside the window across the room, and realized for the first time that it must be a door. Above it was a curious set of complicated shapes nested into one another; after staring at this for some time with growing uneasiness, Thorinn realized that it resembled nothing so much as a pair of metal arms and pincers, like those of the engine that had captured him. A little later he noticed a second, smaller pair down at the other end of the room. Unfolded, by the look of them, the two sets of metal arms would be able to reach into any part of the room. There was nothing to hide behind—nothing moveable in the room, except his own belongings and the thin pallet, which was too flimsy to be of any use. Thorinn crossed the room and tried to wedge the point of his sword into the crack around the door, then into the space between two pieces of one of the metal arms, but without success. He returned to the cot.