Coming again after many hours to the branching of paths, he tried to rest both mind and body, conceding the inevitable. His anger here was useless. It had only robbed him of strength and precious time, and he was no closer to a resolution of his bitter quest than he had ever been. And also, a peculiar yellow fear, such as he had seldom experienced in his life, was beginning to grow in him. At first he blamed himself, raging. But walking through the twisted tunnels of the labyrinth he had realized, suddenly, that it was not his fear alone. His body was still not right, if wrong in a way that was hard to define, and there could be but one explanation for it. The mist, the growing light, was affecting his altered physiology. He searched within himself, bewildered, till Shannon's memory put a name to it. RADIATION. A force that should not affect an insect, but which worked on those parts of his body that were yet human. He rested for a time, but his rest was brief. The feelings of unease continued to grow in him; they would not be contained. The source of what he sought---he could now feel a faint throbbing in the stone around him---was a danger in itself, repulsing, even as it called to him. He must find it quickly, then be gone. For he knew that his time in those depths was limited. He gathered what courage and presence of mind he could, then pushed on, entering the left-hand passage. He summoned now all his underground instincts, honed by the long delvings of his life among the mai. In those days, a constant stream unbroken by sleep, he had endlessly searched out tunnels untraveled or long forgotten, returning ever and again to those that went deepest, learning the mazes, delving deeper still. Though what he sought there he could not have said. The left-hand way was subtle, as he passed onward through the narrow stone, with many turnings and side passages. He held mostly to the main shaft, learning its direction, following it on its slow, steady course downward. Many times it narrowed, till he was ready to despair. But always through perseverance and careful backtracking, he was able to find a way through. The narrowing and tight touching of the walls began to frighten him. By this, more than any other token, he knew that the growing fear inside him was not solely his own. Far back in the journey he had realized that in taking the quest he must know, in part, what it was to be human. Perhaps the spirit of Shannon still lived more strongly than he knew. And perhaps there were others as well. Often he had thought with human voice, human words, till now it was impossible to separate the two. He had known, and been, emotions that were not his own..... But THIS fear. Sometimes from the deeps of his mind he could hear a howling as of many tormented voices, rising out of him like a driven, heart-frozen wind.