He tried to get up, but he couldn't; the ground was still trembling. A crack appeared near the Havelock, and it crawled along the ground slowly, crookedly. It crawled at a snail's pace, less than a snail's pace--but it moved. And it grew. It was as wide as Burt's arm. Wider. It grew. * * * * * Suddenly, it gaped wide, and the grinding and rumbling was louder. It opened into a cavernous maw--right under the Havelock. For a moment the Havelock stood poised, as if on air--and then the battered; flattened ship disappeared within the hole, clattering against the walls as it fell. The ground shuddered again, violently; the hole became a crack, closing in upon itself. It disappeared altogether, and only the rough terrain remained. But the Havelock was gone. Marcia stood up. "An earthquake?" She trembled. "On a planetoid twenty miles in diameter? Don't be silly. You'd need an unstable interior for an earthquake--and this little globe cooled and stabilized long ago." "Yes? Then why is it warm?" She had him there, and Burt didn't know. Why was the asteroid warm? If he knew the answer to that, he might know the answer to a lot of things. "This is stupid, Burt. Let's stop talking and find Johnny. He could be half way around the asteroid by now, or more." Burt shook his head. "We can't all go and look. Joan would delay us. You stay here with her, Marcia--or, better still, get back to the ship with her and stay inside. I'll find Johnny and bring him back. Then we'll get the devil out of here." Marcia smiled wanly. "That I'd like. And Burt?" "Yeah, kid?" "Be careful...." * * * * * Burt felt like a kangaroo. Only no earthly kangaroo had ever taken leaps like this. He had flicked the switch of the gravity equalizer over to the right, shutting off the power. Then he had taken off in great leaps, looking for Johnny. His jumps carried him forty or fifty feet in the air, and then he floated down, almost weightless. With concentration, he could have avoided those high leaps. He could have propelled himself forward, fifty and sixty feet at a jump, but he did not want to. The horizon was too close, and the only way he could find Johnny was like this. As he reached the apex of each leap, he could see much further than he could on the ground, and he was looking for the boy. Once he thought he saw Johnny, a tiny blob way off in the distance, but he came down from his jump too soon, and he could not be sure. He called loudly, and everything else was quiet, and his voice was almost frightening. Soon the ground felt spongy to him, but he shrugged it off. As soon as he landed, he was off again, and it probably was his imagination. Hard rock did not become spongy like this, not suddenly, without warning, with no possible explanation.