.

The highway rolled away behind us, under the light of Phobos.
Buildings passed, vague as buildings along a road usually are at
night. It was the same with the clumps of vegetation. Lights, which
might have been electrical, flashed into my eyes and passed by. In a
deep valley through which we moved in part of our short trip, a dense,
stratified fog arose between the lights and me. I noticed with an odd
detachment that the fog was composed of minute ice crystals, which
glinted in the glow of the strange lamps. I tried to remember our
course. I knew that it was generally east. Off in the night there were
clangings and hisses that might have been factory noises.

Once Miller asked, "Is everybody okay?"

Klein's and Craig's responses were gruff and unsteady in the phones.

"Sure...."

"More or less--if heart-failure doesn't get me."

"I guess our skins are still intact," I said.

We didn't talk after that.

* * * * *

At last we entered a long, downward-slanting tunnel, full of soft
luminescence that seemed to come out of the white-tiled walls
themselves. My attention grew a little vague. It could be that my mind
turned in on itself, like a turtle drawing in its head for protection.
In that state of semiconsciousness, I experienced a phantasm. I
imagined I was a helpless grub being dragged down into the depths of
an ant-hill.

But such a grub belongs in an ant-hill a lot more than a man belonged
where I was going. This became plainer when the large tunnel ended,
and we were dragged and carried along winding burrows, never more than
three feet in diameter. Mostly they were tiled, but often their walls
were of bare rock or soil. Twice we passed through air-locks.

I couldn't describe too much of what I saw or the noises I heard in
those warrens. In one place, incandescence glowed and wheels turned.
In a great low-ceilinged chamber full of artificial sun-rays there was
a garden with strange blooms. The architecture of the city was not
altogether utilitarian and it was not unpleasing. I saw a lot more.
But my mind was somewhat fuzzy, probably from shock and fatigue.

I know we traversed another chamber, where trays full of round lumps
of soil were set in frames. A Martian nursery, no doubt.

Some minutes later, my companions and I were left in a small room,
high enough so that we could stand erect in it. Here the Martians let
go of us. We sprawled on the floor, faces down. We'd h