or. And slowly, inexorably, it was growing
smaller still. With desperate haste the practiced, uniformed man was
adjusting his range.

Captain Ilgen struggled when Mich'l seized him.

"I arrest--"

Mich'l thought for a sickening moment that he was caught in the
closing gate. Then he was free in the cylindrical tunnel into which
the plug was creeping. Luckily, Ilgen was slight. His body squeezed
through with little more difficulty than Mich'l's own. Now the opening
was too small for any man's body. A red glow illuminated that
narrowing slit; an acrid wave of heat, and the smell of burnt metal
came with the strong current of air that blew out of Subterranea.

* * * * *

Mich'l dragged his captive down the rocky tunnel, the floor of which
dipped gently away from the Gate; for drainage, no doubt. Around a
bend, the source of the greenish light was apparent. The fugitives
were in an ice cavern. The light seemed to emanate from roof and
walls. The air was uncompromisingly chill, for the blast of warm air
from Subterranea had stopped.

But the cold of the air was nothing to the icy chill that settled on
the heart of Mich'l Ares, and the hearts of Senator Mane, and the
other leaders of this desperate enterprise. So this, this was the
Outside! A cavern of ice--small, hemmed-in! Those ancient folk-legends
of a Sun--

"I arrest you, Mich'l Ares!"

Mich'l laughed shortly. What a single-minded fellow this Captain Ilgen
was! Still groggy, of course. Didn't know where they were. He left the
soldier with the red, blistered face.

"Mich'l! Mich'l!" a voice echoed shrilly from the ice walls. It was a
high-pitched voice, and an excited one. A boy came flying out of a
narrow crevice, his short robe flying, his cloth-wrapped legs
twinkling.

"Mich'l!" he shouted. "I saw it! I saw the Sun, the beautiful Sun!"

Lucky it was that in the rush no one was hurt. The small cleft opened
into a wide tunnel, a low-roofed cave through which milky-white water
flowed. The cave opened upon a vista of blue sky and towering
mountains whose tops were burdened with snow and upon whose sides
glaciers slid down and melted; and the milky-white stream brawled down
into a green valley, far, far below. On a mountain meadow, not far
from the glacier that still buried the Frozen Gate, they rested....

* * * * *

And so came a new strain of humanity upon the surface of the earth--a
strain t