"No. You're right, it won't get them back to us. That isn't the idea at all, for there is more than one way to skin a cat, my dear. The Nowhere Commission will be studying conditions--" [Illustration] "How can they? I thought everything was so hush-hush, not even Congress knew anything about it." "That was the first big hurdle we have apparently overcome. Anyway, they will be studying conditions with a view of determining if one girl--just one, mind you--can embark on the Nowhere Journey as a pilot study and--" "But I thought they could make the journey only once every seven-hundred-eighty days." "Get Congress aroused and you can move mountains. It seems the expense entailed in a trip at any but those times is generally prohibitive, but when something special comes up--" "It can be done! Mrs. Draper, how I love to talk with you!" "See? There you go, my dear, counting your chickens. One girl will be sent, if the study indicates she can take it. _One_ girl, Stephanie, and only after a study. She'd merely be a pilot case. But afterwards.... Ah, afterwards.... Perhaps someday soon qualified women will be able to join their men in Nowhere." "Mrs. Draper, I love you." "Naturally, you will tell all this to prospective C.E.L. members. Now we have something concrete to work with." "I know. And I will, I will, Mrs. Draper. By the way, how are they going to pick the girl, the one girl?" "Don't count your chickens, for Heaven's sake! They haven't even studied the situation yet. Well, I'll call you, my dear." Stephanie hung up, dressed, went about her canvassing. She thought happy thoughts all week. * * * * * "Shh! Quiet," cautioned Arkalion, leading the way down a flight of heavy-duty plastic stairs. "How do you know your way around here so well?" "I said quiet." It was not so much, Temple realized, that Arkalion was really afraid of making noise. Rather, he did not want to answer questions. Temple smiled in the semi-darkness, heard the steady drip-drip-drip of water off somewhere to his left. Eons before the coming of man on this stopover point to Nowhere, the Martian waters had retreated from the planet's ancient surface and seeped underground to carve, slow drop by drop, the caverns which honey-combed the planet. "You know your way around so well, I'd swear you were a Martian." Arkalion's soft laugh carried far. "I said there was to be no noise. Please! As for the Martians, the only Martians are here all around you, the men of Earth. Ahh, here we are." At the bottom of the flight of stairs Temple could see a door, metallic, giving the impression of strength without great weight. Arkalion paused a moment, did something with a series of levers, shook his head impatiently, started all over again. "What's that for?" Temple wanted to know. "What do you think? It is a combination lock, with five million possible combinations. Do you want to be here for all of eternity?" "No." "Then quiet."