At last, faint with toil, bleeding and torn from glass-sharp splinters, we reached a level chamber, vaulted, surprisingly, with solid rock. It was good to see something of the earth again, something that was not that deadly, all-embracing ice. At the far end lay a blinding patch. I blinked. "Sunlight!" I shouted joyously. "Yes," Keston answered quietly. "That opening leads directly into the valley on our land." Abud roused himself from the unreasoning dread he had been in. It was the first time he had spoken. "Let us get out of here. I feel as though I'm in a tomb." "Are you mad?" Keston said sharply. "The visors would pick you up at once. You wouldn't last very long." Abud stopped suddenly. There was a plaintive, helpless note to him. "But we can't stay here forever. We'd starve, or die of cold. Isn't there some way to get back to the top of the Glacier?" "No--only the way we came. And that's been blocked with terminite." "Then what are we going to do? You've led us into a slow death, you with your boasted brains!" "That remains to be seen," was the calm retort. "In the meantime, we're hungry. Let us eat." And the amazing man drew out of his torn flapping furs the gobs of meat he had cut from the dead bear. I had quite forgotten them. With a glad cry, I too reached into my garments and brought out my supply. * * * * * Abud's eyes glinted evilly. His hand stole stealthily to the bone knife in its skin sheath. His spear had been dropped long before. "None of that," Keston said sharply. "We'll all share equally, even though you have no food. But if you try to hog it all, or use force, you'll die as well as we. There's only enough for a meal or two; and then what will you do?" Abud saw that. He needed Keston's brains. His eyes dropped, and he mumbled something about our misunderstanding his gesture. We let it go at that. We had to. He could have killed us both if he wished. So we divided our food with painstaking fairness. How we gorged on the raw red flesh and thick greasy fat! Food that would have disgusted us when we lived and worked in the Central Station, now was ambrosia to our sharpened appetites. When not the least scrap was left, and we had slaked our thirst with chunks of ice from the cavern floor, I spoke. "What is that plan you spoke of, Keston, for reconquering the earth from the machines?" Abud looked up abruptly at my question, and it seemed to me that a crafty smile glinted in the small pig eyes. Keston hesitated a moment before he spoke. "I confess my plans have been materially impeded by this sudden predicament we find ourselves in, thanks to our good friend here." He ironically indicated Abud. The big prolat merely grunted. "However," Keston continued, "I'll have to make the best of circumstances, without the aid of certain materials that I had expected to assemble.