rlier journey
Walt and Chet had seen them, had fought with the tribe, and had lived
for a time in their caves that made dark shadows high on the rock wall.
And they knew that the wood the ape-men used for their spears was well
suited for bows.

Back in the caves they found discarded spears and some wood that had
been gathered for shafts. Tough, springy, flexible, it was a simple
matter for the men to convert these into serviceable weapons. Sinews
that the ape-men had torn from great beasts made the bowstrings, and
there were other slim shafts that they notched, then sharpened in the
fire.

Yet, to Chet as he worked, came an overwhelming feeling of despondency.
To be fashioning crude weapons like these--preparing to defend
themselves as best they could from the dangers of this new, raw world!
No, it could not be true.... And he knew while he protested that it was
all in vain.

He asked himself a score of times if his impulsive, desperate act had
not been a horrible mistake. And he found the same answer always: it was
all he could have done. Had he attacked Schwartzmann he would have been
killed--and Walt, too! Schwartzmann would have had Diane. Only some such
stupefying shock as the effect of the shattered control could have
checked Schwartzmann. No, there had been no alternative. And the thing
was done. Finally, irrevocably done!

* * * * *

Chet walked to the cave-mouth to stare down at the ship below him in the
valley. From the fumerole's throat came a steady, rolling cloud of
shimmering green; the ship was immersed in it. The voice of Herr Kreiss
spoke to him; the scientist, too, had come forward for another look.

"If it were at the bottom of the sea," he said, "it would be no more
inaccessible. It is, in very fact, at the bottom of a sea--a sea of gas.
We could penetrate an aqueous medium more easily."

"And," Chet pondered slowly, "if only I could have returned.... With
time--and metal bars--and tools that I could improvise--I might...."

His voice trailed off. What use now to speculate on what he might have
done. The scientist concluded his thought:

"You might have reconstructed the control--yes, I, too, had thought of
that. But now, the gas! No--we must put that out of our minds, unless we
would become insane."

Chet turned back into the black and odorous cave. He saw Harkness who
was flexing a bow he was making for Diane; he was showing her how to
grip it and let the