He would have liked to remove his jacket, but there were too many things in the pockets to spill out.

He had counted one hundred seven paces when the tunnel turned again. It was just beyond the turn that they found Noriega's body.

The tunnel branched here; or at least, a narrower tunnel angled up and off from each side. These tunnels were dark, and, Craig found, cold and with low air pressure. The same mild resistance guarded their mouths. The General lay sprawled loosely just inside the right-hand branch, his head and torso in shadow. He looked simply and peacefully dead.

"Will you lend me a hand, Lieutenant?" Brulieres said. The two of them dragged Noriega into the light.

Craig could see no burns nor any other kind of wound except an abrasion on one cheek which might have resulted from a fall. He started to ask Rabar exactly what had happened, but checked himself. Better not appear suspicious.

He wondered what had happened to the general's pistol, and began to look around for it. But again Brulieres was ahead of him. The priest was eighteen or twenty yards farther into the tunnel, picking up something. It was the pistol. It went into the cloak as the heat-weapon had.

Craig was watching Rabar and he thought the man looked disconcerted. Craig thought, How's this for a theory: Rabar killed Noriega, took his pistol and started up the tunnel. Maybe he just wanted to learn for himself what was in the mountain, or maybe he planned to murder the rest of the party and make it look like an accident. He met the glowing creature, panicked, put two bullets into it, then dropped the gun and ran.

Craig wondered if the priest shared his doubts about Rabar; but if he did, he didn't show it. The priest was already starting on.

Craig lost count of his steps, but judged they'd gone over a quarter of a mile when the tunnel took a final right-angle turn and opened into a great high-domed chamber.

IV

Immediately all question as to the nature of this place vanished. It could only be a military base.

There's something recognizable about weapons, Craig mused, no matter how unfamiliar. Here were gathered great vehicles of war, bristling with the outsize cousins of the heat-tube Brulieres carried and with a myriad other menacing shapes. Yawning black tunnels led away at 

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