motion. Ebor,
looking up, noticed for the first time that the dome wasn't there any
more. The main dome, housing the staff and equipment of the base, just
wasn't there.

And the driver, he now saw, was aiming the car toward the nearby
crater wall. Extending two of his eyes till they almost touched the
face-plate of his helmet, he could see activity at the base of the
crater wall, and what looked like an air-lock entrance. He wondered
what had caused the change, which had obviously been done at top
speed. The last time he'd been here, not very long ago, the dome had
still been intact, and there had been no hint of any impending move
underground.

The driver steered the car into the open air lock, and they waited
until the first cargo truck had lumbered in after them. Then the outer
door closed, the pumps were turned on, and in a minute the red light
flashed over the inner door. Ebor removed the spacesuit gratefully,
left it in the car, and walked clumsily through the inner door into
the new base.

A good job had been done on it, for all the speed. Rooms and corridors
has been melted out of the rock, the floors had been carpeted, the
walls painted, and the ceiling lined with light panels. All of the
furnishings had been transferred here from the original dome, and the
result looked, on the whole, quite livable. As livable as the dome had
been, at least.

But the base commander, Darquelnoy, waiting for his old friend Ebor
near the inner door of the lock, looked anything but happy with the
arrangement. At Ebor's entrance he raised a limp tentacle in weary
greeting and said, "Come in, my friend, come in. Tell me the new jokes
from home. I could use some cheering up."

"None worth telling," said Ebor. He looked around. "What's happened
here?" he asked. "Why've you gone underground? Why do you need
cheering up?"

Darquelnoy clicked his eyes in despair. "Those _things_!" he cried.
"Those annoying little creatures on that blasted planet up there!"

Ebor repressed an amused ripple. He knew Darquelnoy well enough to
know that the commander invariably overstated things. "What've they
been up to, Dar?" he asked. "Come on, you can tell me over a hot cup
of restno."

"I've been practically living on the stuff for the last two dren,"
said Darquelnoy hopelessly. "Well, I suppose another cup won't kill
me. Come on to my quarters."

"I've worked up a fine thirst on the trip," Ebor told him.

* * * *