The thing was lying its length upon the ground. Not quiescent, but everywhere in quivering, undulating, snakelike movement. Its eyes seemed all turned this one way. Eyes suggesting an intelligence--a reasoning behind them. A thing, not animal but vegetable! Its brain, lacking even the least vestige of human or animal restraint, cast in a mold unutterably horrible. Eeff was crouching at Degg's feet, babbling with terror. Degg muttered, "It is unrooted! Free! It--I told Rokk they would break free some time--before he was ready!" "Unrooted!" Zee echoed. Unrooted! It was slithering, out there in the darkness. . . . It shrank to a blood-red blur. . . . It vanished. . . . They went on again. Degg would not talk, save to reiterate fearsomely, "I knew they would cast off their roots! Roaming, everywhere. And Rokk thought he dared to grow them----" A rise of ground lay ahead. Beyond its crest only the purple sky was visible, with stars sweeping in rapid, low arcs. Martt, Degg and Zee were walking together, with Eeff close before them. Eeff began whimpering again; then screamed. And ahead, from over the crest of the hill, as though in answer came an echoing scream! Yet not an echo! A scream, human! It drove the blood to Martt's heart; stopped his breathing. The scream of a voice familiar--a girl's voice--Frannie! For all the horror surging over him, Martt leaped forward. And stopped, stricken on the hill-crest. Beneath him in the gloom lay a shallow, bowl-like depression. The starlight illumined it wanly. Frannie was down there, struggling in the grip of a blood-red, vegetable thing! A segment of it was wrapped around her, dragging her forward. The light of it drenched her with blood; its myriad green eyes glared throughout its waving length. [Illustration: "Frannie struggled in the grip of the blood-red, vegetable thing."] And ahead of it was a line of others of its kind, leading the way, slithering up and over the opposite slope! _CHAPTER 6_ THE BLOOD-RED DAY To Frannie, the subterranean river was an inferno of roaring blackness. Her dhrane was whirled along, sometimes swimming, sometimes floundering desperately. Frannie clung to its antlers and closed her eyes. . . . An eternity. . . . She heard Rokk shouting; felt the dhrane scrambling upon solid ground. The water dropped away from its sides. . . . Frannie found herself and her dhrane standing in a dull, luminous darkness upon a ledge by the river. The other dhranes were there. Rokk spoke to Leela. "What does he say?" Frannie demanded. "He says we must get larger--this is too dangerous." They followed then the methods used afterward by Degg in guiding Martt and Zee. Wading, in a large size, they went down the river. Then into the passageway leading upward.