He switched on his flashlight. It cast a long beam down the dusty corridor. Far ahead of them, a small animal scurried across the faint light and vanished into the darkness. Nuwell checked his atmosphere dial. "The oxygen in here is all right," he said. "The air has been maintained, anyhow. We can take off our helmets." They took off the marshelmets and walked down the corridor. They checked each side door, looking for the communications room, but found only empty chambers or abandoned rooms in which books, papers and broken furniture were scattered in complete disorganization. It took them nearly an hour to find the communications room. And there they met disappointment. Ultra Vires' radio transmitter and receiver had been dismantled. There was nothing there but a jumble of broken tubes, discarded parts and bare wire ends dangling from the walls. Nothing but an overturned table and two bent metal chairs. "That settles that," said Nuwell, more philosophically then Maya would have expected. "Our only hope is to find a groundcar." That necessitated another search, but at last they found the motor pool. And there were three groundcars, all in various stages of breakdown or dismantlement. "It looks like we'll have to walk, Nuwell," said Maya. Nuwell shook his head. "I checked the chart carefully," he said. "The oxygen supply of a marsuit won't take us either back to the Canfell Farm or to Ophir, even with extra tanks. We're just going to have to cannibalize two of these machines and repair us a groundcar." "But, Nuwell, how long will that take?" "I don't know," he admitted. "It looks like it may be quite a job. I expect it will take two or three weeks, but that's the only way we're going to get out of here." He looked at her speculatively. "It's a shame we aren't already married," he said. "This would provide us with a honeymoon, of a sort, out here by ourselves in the desert." "Well, we aren't," she said flatly. "And we won't be until we get back to Mars City." "That's true," he said. "Well, the only thing we can do for tonight is to have supper and find the rooms that Goat assigned us when we were here before. I hope he left some beds intact in those, or some of the other rooms. If not, we may have some uncomfortable nights ahead of us." 12 The two Dark Kensingtons and Happy Thurbelow walked along one of the pathways between the vats, Happy trailing a bit behind. Somewhere near them, they knew, Shadow accompanied them. The place was dim, with the moist dimness of a swamp. The source of the light that filtered through the faint mist and seemed to permeate the air was not discernible, and the roof of this underground world was lost in the darkness above them. The placid surface of the water gleamed vaguely in the vats they passed, and the pale-green tangle of vegetation rose above and around them, sometimes drooping over the paths like skinny arms that sought to detain them.