inued forward. He must find
some kind of sustenance. Sustenance. He thought of his foreclaw, but
remembering the man..... No. Not yet.

He wandered on, stumbling, raising himself up to go on. Plodded
forward, sinking ever deeper, and onward, until the air around him
suddenly grew larger. A loosened rock rolled off another, and the echo
did not return for some time. He moved to his right, sensing
something, and stroked the tip of his claw against the slanting surface
which met it. The surface was sometimes soft and not smooth; it was
not part of the stone. He tried to break off a small piece. The layer
was thin, and it crumbled. He tried again, brought the wretched
substance---some kind of dried blood, or excrement---to his mouth. Its
taste was bile and bitter and acid. Then swallowed. Throat burning,
he repeated the motion perhaps a dozen times, then collapsed, half
holding, to the floor. And lay unmoving.

*

Simin woke from his delirium many hours later, somewhat stronger, but
still dizzy and confused. The little nourishment he had taken lifted
his mind back to awareness, strong, if subtly altered by the thick aura
of the place, and by the strange and pressing reality of his quest. He
rose slowly, careful not to spend the wavering hope he had found, and
looked around him.

Looked around him. There was a dim light in that place, that region of
vastness. And whatever the source, though all before had been
darkness, it was undeniable. The light was dim and surreal, softly
yellow and fallow gold, but nonetheless afforded him a glimpse of this
underground world, if it did not end, which he must now traverse. For
here, more than ever, he sensed a presence that was greater than his
own life, if distantly, not calling him but aware of his need.

Strangeness.

He was not alone in that ribbed, spine-ceilinged enclosure. Around a
far turning he caught movement, and was sure as an ebb and flow motion
of body and legs rounded the inward corner that was the edge of his
sight. He was still too weak to fight, or to go on, as the many legged
creature approached him blindly, unaware of his presence. It drew
closer, then seemed to slow in its movements, coming gradually to a
halt. Descendant of the centipede, it studied him from a distance of
forty meters, its poisoned forward spikes twitching with unease.

Though the centipede was longer, its bulk and his were nearly equal.
He had no strength for