ew
directly over her, and left the sorry massacre behind.

With this action his patience expired. Landing as the far side of the
chamber grew shallow, he walked on through a curving length of tunnel
for some miles, until confronted by a three-directional branching of
the passageway. He followed the right-hand way first, and for a short
time made good progress. But then it doubled back on him and finally
ended, died, into a narrowing of stone through which he could not pass.
Furious, he worked his way back to the starting point, taking this
time the central shaft, leading downward. The result was the same,
though it took him much longer to realize. Returning again to the
meeting of ways was now difficult, since in his haste he had been
forced to take and re-take several turns in a compact but puzzling
labyrinth, that he found in the end took him nowhere.

Coming again after many hours to the branching of paths, he tried to
rest both mind and body, conceding the inevitable. His anger here was
useless. It had only robbed him of strength and precious time, and he
was no closer to a resolution of his bitter quest than he had ever
been. And also, a peculiar yellow fear, such as he had seldom
experienced in his life, was beginning to grow in him. At first he
blamed himself, raging. But walking through the twisted tunnels of the
labyrinth he had realized, suddenly, that it was not his fear alone.
His body was still not right, if wrong in a way that was hard to
define, and there could be but one explanation for it. The mist, the
growing light, was affecting his altered physiology. He searched
within himself, bewildered, till Shannon's memory put a name to it.
RADIATION. A force that should not affect an insect, but which worked
on those parts of his body that were yet human.

He rested for a time, but his rest was brief. The feelings of unease
continued to grow in him; they would not be contained. The source of
what he sought---he could now feel a faint throbbing in the stone
around him---was a danger in itself, repulsing, even as it called to
him. He must find it quickly, then be gone. For he knew that his time
in those depths was limited. He gathered what courage and presence of
mind he could, then pushed on, entering the left-hand passage.

He summoned now all his underground instincts, honed by the long
delvings of his life among the mai. In those days, a constant stream
unbroken by sleep, he had endl