McGowan came back up with us. "What would you say, Reed? Think we're enough into that beam to have set off an alarm?" "How close would you say we are?" I asked. "According to my estimates, there must be at least another hundred yards of rock." "Then I'd say we're safe. We must be on the very fringe of this beam. But if it weren't for me--" "Yes, I know. But now your work's only beginning. We're going to have to cut parallel to the surface and get beyond range of the furthest beam before we can go up again." McGowan was right. And this took several more weeks. We were very impatient now, but he impressed upon us the need for extreme caution. At last, however, we reached a point where I was definitely sure we were beyond the range. It had been agony for me, that constant proximity to the beams that seemed to tear at my every nerve-center; but I endured it and said nothing. "This doesn't mean we're safe yet," McGowan cautioned us, when we began the vertical climb again. "To get near Marnick's house will be a problem in itself; he's sure to have it barricaded with beams, and we have to watch out for those two Jovian brutes of his." I wonder if it could have been quite by chance that we broke through the surface during McGowan's turn? He must have had our distance calculated to the very foot. I felt a sudden current of fresh night air that nearly overwhelmed me, and then I saw that he had broken through. We simply lay there for a long while, not speaking, breathing in that intoxicating air. I had never really known how I missed it until now; never had I known that the stars could be so close and so brilliant, until I glimpsed a handful of them through those few square inches of space. At last McGowan carefully plugged that opening with a few bits of rock. He turned to me and said: "We must wait 'til tomorrow; we will bring the others." It seemed to me that tomorrow would never come. At last, however, our next sleep period rolled around, and we met in our secret place. McGowan held a special, final little conclave. "There is something," he said, "that I have withheld from you until now. As you all undoubtedly know, we are not entirely abandoned here; that is to say, twice a year an official Earth ship sets down to leave supplies and take aboard the radite we have mined. And I know what most of you have been thinking: that if we can once reach the surface, and get Marnick out of the way, we can hide out until that Earth ship comes, then overpower the crew and escape." Murmurs of approval came from the six of us, especially from the group of Earthmen. "I'm sorry," McGowan went on, "but that's not the way the thing's going to work out." Sounds of discontent arose. "Because I have a better plan. The Earth ship won't arrive here for two more months. Its crew outnumbers us, and they are well armed. Therefore, we won't wait for it at all; instead we'll take Marnick's own ship.