e, 23 Juli 2207

We walk up Surface Passage still, but there is a difference. Before last
sleep there was much hope in our hearts. Now our hope is almost nothing.

It was Nina who knew first. She brought me out of sleep, shaking my
shoulder and saying my name, until my mind was awake enough to
understand.

Theodor was gone!

He had left us the one lamp that was burning. The other two lamps he had
taken; and all of our food and water. But our hunger may never become
too great. With one lamp, there will be light until only a few hours
after next sleep.

Doctor Dorn blames himself. He says he should have been able to tell
that Theodor might do something like this. But Doctor Dorn feels the
same tiredness that is in us all, making our thoughts like shadows.

Sleep time has come, but we do not stop. We will walk on and rest when
we must. When the end of life is so near, the will finds strength.

* * * * *

Twenty-Third Awake, 24 Juli 2207

We have walked through sleep and we have slept while we walked. The rise
is steeper. Our oil lamp is still burning and our shadows fall behind us
into the blackness. There will be light for perhaps ten more hours.

There is a dampness now in the passage, like that of the passage to Red
Lake. Our tiredness is so great we become afraid sometimes that after
one of our rests we may not be able to go on. I am worried about Nina.
She says nothing, but I think for a long while now she has been walking
on heart strength alone. We have seven hours of light before us.

The passage has ended. For a moment the thought came that we were on
Earth Surface. But Doctor Dorn says we are in a great cavern, larger
even than the Cavern of Red Lake. Our one light is as nothing in this
great blackness, and we walk close to the wall so we will not become
lost. In some places the walls are like glass as if from a very great
heat. There are more passages in the sides of this cavern than the mind
can imagine. But after this rest there is nothing else we can do but try
one of them.

For five hours we have been lost in passages that curve and turn and
join with each other as madly as if they were made by lost-mind men. Now
we have found our way back to the Great Cavern. We shall stay here the
two hours longer our light and lives will last.

It is easier now that our hope is nothing.

We can rest and wait, and even our fear becomes less in our tiredness.

The time has go