ition, but his
muscles seemed so terribly tired that flexing them was a high-magnitude
effort.

After several tries, he got his arms under his chest, and only then did
he realize that he had been lying prone, his right cheek pressed against
cold, slimy stone. He lifted himself a little, but the effort was too
much, and he collapsed again, his body making a faint splash as he did
so.

He lay there for a while, trying to puzzle out his odd and uncomfortable
environment. He seemed to be lying on a sloping surface with his head
higher than his feet. The lower part of his body was immersed in chill,
gently-moving water. And there was something else--

The smell.

It was an incredible stench, an almost overpowering miasma of decay.

He moved his head then, and forced his eyes open. There was a dim,
feeble glow from somewhere overhead and to his right, but it was enough
to show him a vaulted ceiling a few feet above him. He was lying in some
sort of tube which--

And then the sudden realization came.

He was in a sewer.

The shock of it cleared his mind a little, and gave added strength to
his muscles. He pushed himself to his hands and knees and began crawling
toward the dim light. It wasn't more than eight or ten feet, but it
seemed to take an eternity for him to get there. Above him was a
grating, partially covered with a soggy-looking sheet of paper. The
light evidently came from a glow-plate several yards away.

He lay there, exhausted and aching, trying to force his brain into
action, trying to decide what to do next.

He'd have to lift the grating, of course; that much was obvious. And
he'd have to stand up to do that. Did he have the strength?

Only one way to find out. Again he pushed himself to his hands and
knees, and it seemed easier this time. Then, bracing himself against the
curving wall of the sewer, he got to his feet. His knees were weak and
wobbly, but they'd hold. They _had_ to hold.

The top of the sewer duct was not as far off as it had seemed; he had to
stoop to keep from banging his head against the grating. He paused in
that position to catch his breath, and then reached up, first with one
hand and then with the other, to grasp the grating.

Then, with all the strength he could gather, he pushed upwards. The
hinged grate moved upwards and banged loudly on the pavement.

There remained the problem of climbing out of the hole. The Guesser
never knew how he solved it. Somehow, he managed