had just been proved to me with unpleasant emphasis.

It was rank folly to press on; the party would be annihilated.

"Down this passage, men," I ordered the two ray operators. "We'll have
to think up a better plan."

They turned off into the passage they had swept clean with their ray,
and the rest of the party followed swiftly. A few yards from the main
corridor the passage turned and ran parallel to the corridor we had
just left. Doors opened off this passage on both sides, but all the
doors were open, and the cubicles thus revealed were empty.

* * * * *

"Well, sir," said Correy, when we had come to the dead end of the
passage, "now what?"

"I don't know," I confessed. "If we had two ray machines, we could
make it. But if I remember correctly, it's seven hundred yards, yet,
to the first of the tunnels leading to the surface--and that means
several hundred side passages from which they can attack. We can't
make it."

"Well, we can try again, anyway, sir," Correy replied stoutly. "Better
to go down fighting than stay here and starve, eh?"

"If you'll pardon me, gentlemen," put in Inverness, "I'd like to make
a suggestion. We can't return the way we came in; I'm convinced of
that. It was the sheerest luck that Commander Hanson wasn't brought
down a moment ago--luck, and excellent work on the part of the two ray
operators.

"But an analysis of our problem shows that our real objective is to
reach the surface, and that need not be done the most obvious way, by
returning over the course by which we entered."

"How, then?" I asked sharply.

"The disintegrator ray you have there should be able to cut a passage
for us," said Inverness. "Then all we need do is protect our rear
while the operators are working. Once on the surface, we'll be able to
fight our way to the ship, will we not?"

"Of course! You should be in command, Inverness, instead of myself."
His was the obvious solution to our difficulty; once proposed, I felt
amazingly stupid that the thought had not occurred to me.

I gave the necessary orders to the ray men, and they started
immediately, boring in steadily at an angle of about forty-five
degrees.

The reddish dust came back to us in choking clouds, and the Aranians,
perhaps guessing what we were doing--at least one of their number had
seen how the ray could tunnel in the ground--started working around
the angle of the passage.

* * *