The passage is still climbing and we rest often. I write a little during some of our rests. * * * * * There is very little oil left. Doctor Dorn says we must take a dangerous chance. No lamp has gone out for a long time. If we burn only one lamp, we can have light for almost four more awakes and sleeps. If this is really a Surface Passage, and if what is written in the forbidden books is true, this time may be enough for us to reach Earth Surface. We have been burning only one lamp since our last rest. How bright does the light from the two lamps seem now. Nina says she feels she can reach out and touch the blackness. Theodor is very frightened. Over and over he says we must go back and take the other passage, that if we go on we shall all be dead bones. I think Doctor Dorn would become angry if he did not understand how frightened Theodor is. During rest, Theodor spoke words that made Nina feel very sad. He said it was because of her that we would all die. I became very angry, and told him if he said anything like that again, I would finish what Bruno had started. He knows I would not do this, but now he talks very little. * * * * * Twenty-Second Awake, 23 Juli 2207 We walk up Surface Passage still, but there is a difference. Before last sleep there was much hope in our hearts. Now our hope is almost nothing. It was Nina who knew first. She brought me out of sleep, shaking my shoulder and saying my name, until my mind was awake enough to understand. Theodor was gone! He had left us the one lamp that was burning. The other two lamps he had taken; and all of our food and water. But our hunger may never become too great. With one lamp, there will be light until only a few hours after next sleep. Doctor Dorn blames himself. He says he should have been able to tell that Theodor might do something like this. But Doctor Dorn feels the same tiredness that is in us all, making our thoughts like shadows. Sleep time has come, but we do not stop. We will walk on and rest when we must. When the end of life is so near, the will finds strength. * * * * * Twenty-Third Awake, 24 Juli 2207 We have walked through sleep and we have slept while we walked. The rise is steeper. Our oil lamp is still burning and our shadows fall behind us into the blackness. There will be light for perhaps ten more hours. There is a dampness now in the passage, like that of the passage to Red Lake. Our tiredness is so great we become afraid sometimes that after one of our rests we may not be able to go on. I am worried about Nina. She says nothing, but I think for a long while now she has been walking on heart strength alone. We have seven hours of light before us.