"When we first began," he explained, "we made much faster progress. But now a man can't work more than two or three hours up here, for the air gets pretty stale. We take turns, of course, day after day. It's going to be pretty tough on you from now to the finish, because you'll have to be up here every day for a couple of hours. We're counting on you."

Yes, they were counting on me. Now for the first time I began to realize how much; and I began to doubt myself. I wasn't really sure that I could still detect those finder beams. It had been a long time since I had experienced it. Besides, the radite ore emanations had effected my body in that curious tingling way, just as it had every man here. So perhaps that would prevent—?

I only knew that if we ever blundered into one of those directional finder beams, which McGowan said were raying down, it would instantly set off an alarm in Marnick's quarters. I tried not to imagine what would happen after that. In a sort of panic I pressed my sweating body against the rocky wall, but all I could feel was the familiar radite-tingling crawling through my skin.

So we worked day after day until they lengthened into weeks. My daily labor at the radite vein was almost a pleasure now as I anticipated the few hours of work that would come later in our secret tunnel. Daily I accompanied a different one of our group. I wanted to take my own turn at the digging, but McGowan wouldn't stand for this, preferring that I direct all my attention toward the detector beams.

Weeks passed and still I detected no beams.

Kueelo, I found, was sullen and silent. The other Martian, V'Narik, talked to me only on a few occasions. "I have a curious presentiment," he told me once, "that I shall never escape from here. You others, perhaps, but not me. I am with you on this only because there is nothing better to do. But if I can only reach the surface, and glimpse the stars once again—especially the redness of Mars—this will have been worth while."

The Martians are a strange race. I never could understand them. I tried to cheer V'Narik, but he only shook his head solemnly.

From the others I gradually learned much that I had often wondered about, especially concerning Marnick. "There are various stories about him," McGowan told me once. "The one I'm inclined to believe is that Marnick incurred his hatred of men long ago, during the early years of the Mars mines. He was one of the earliest pioneers there. He 

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