Rawson had taken one flame-thrower with him. He tied it securely inside the shell so it could not shift with the changing gravity, or be accidentally turned on. Again he clung to the curved bar against the wall. Loah stood at the center, directing the craft. Once again he floated in air, then found himself standing on what had been the ceiling of the room. The girl had released a considerable quantity of the lifting element in the _jana's_ end, and now the black powder in the other end of the central tube was dragging them at terrific speed as it rushed away from the earth's center. Over six hundred miles, Rawson had figured, from that inner surface to the neutral zone where the red substance of the earth, that was neither rock nor metal, under terrific pressures, glowed with fervent heat or formed pools like the Lake of Fire. Perhaps a hundred miles thick, that zone of incessant energy, and their little craft tore through it at tremendous speed. Even so, he was gasping for breath in the heated room when the glow faded and again he swung over and down upon the floor as Loah checked the speed of the flying projectile and the little ship crept slowly up into the room where first he had seen it. The first that he noticed was the absence of the roar. The _jana_ drifted slowly to one side, and Loah let it come to rest upon the floor. Staring from the open door, Rawson saw the same familiar red walls and floor and the black opening of the shaft from which they had come. But the reverberating roar of the great organ-pipe was gone. He knew that the air, for the greater part, was driving on past through the upper shaft that was now open. The way was clear for them to ascend. He turned to the girl. * * * * * "If my figures are right, it's some thirteen hundred miles from here on. How did you get up there before?" Loah pointed to the passage where the _jana_, on that other excursion, had been hidden. "We went through there," she said, "taking the _jana_ with us. We went up many miles through a great crack, but it was not straight; we had to go carefully till another passage opened through to the shaft far above where it was sealed." "And the mole-men never found it?" "Oh, yes," said Loah, "they must have known of the crack, but they did not know where it led. Its air was bad--a gas that choked; one could not breathe it and live. But in our little _jana_ we were safe. They could not use theirs; it was too large. Besides, only the priests came down. They had their Lake of Fire, where they did horrible things. They did not know that the shaft began again below." "O. K.," said Rawson, and closed the door. "But I wish to get out," Loah protested, "to gather more of the Oro. We may need more, should we return." "We will never need it," Rawson spoke softly. "From the time we left Gor we had just twenty-four hours to live. We must go on, and go fast." * * * * *