thought and were watching.

"Look for a door," Scotty said. He hurried to the back of the statue and
began examining it with his light. Rick joined him. Zircon got out a
jackknife and began to probe into cracks. Chahda got down on hands and
knees and felt along the base.

The back of the statue was seamed with cracks, but they ran
helter-skelter without apparent order. The illumination against which
the shadow was cast had been rectangular.

"There isn't a straight line in the bunch," Rick said, disappointed.
"What now?"

"There must be a way to open the door, wherever it is," Zircon stated.
"That's what we must look for, I think. It may be on the statue itself,
on the floor, or on a wall near by. Rick, you and Scotty take the
statue. Chahda and I will take the walls and floor."

"What are we hunting for?" Scotty asked.

"I don't know. Perhaps a knob, perhaps a keyhole. Look for anything
unusual."

Rick and Scotty began at opposite sides of the statue's back and started
working toward each other, examining every inch of the black stone
minutely. Zircon and Chahda started side by side on the wall behind the
statue and worked away from each other. Rick used his jackknife to probe
every suspicious crack or chip, but without success. He and Scotty
covered the back as high up as they could reach without finding a thing.
Zircon and Chahda worked along the wall until they were thirty feet
apart, then the scientist called a halt on the theory that the secret
lock wouldn't be that far from the door. The door was either in the
statue's back or near its base.

While Zircon and Chahda started examining the floor, Rick and Scotty
started on the statue's sides. There was more decoration along the
sides, so they had to go more slowly and carefully.

After a while, Chahda called, "Something here."

The others stopped what they were doing and hurried to him. The Hindu
boy's light was on a tiny slot in the floor. It seemed shallow. Rick
pointed out that the floor in the area was checkered, almost like a tile
floor.

"There must be a reason for that," Zircon said. He knelt by the slot and
peered into it. "Nothing in the slot, however. Rick, isn't yours a scout
knife?"

"Yes, sir." Rick handed it to him.

Zircon opened the screwdriver blade and pushed it into the slot. Nothing
happened. He moved it from side to side, with no effect.

"There must be some reason for that slot," Scotty said. "Try again,
professor. Push har