n't get through the steel, but he would scratch
the tin off, and the cycle would begin again. Later, another rat would
find that can weak enough to bite through. It kept the rats fed almost
as well as an automatic machine might have.

The tunnel before him was an endless monochromatic world that was both
artificial and natural. Here was a neatly squared-off mosaic of ceramic
tile that was obviously man-made; over there, on a little hillock of
earth, squatted a colony of fat mushrooms. In several places he had to
skirt little pools of dark, stagnant water; twice he had to climb over
long heaps of crumbling rust that had once been trains of subway cars.

He kept moving--one man, alone, walking through the dark toward a
superhuman monster that had terrorized Earth for a decade.

A drug that would knock out the Nipe would have been very useful, but to
synthesize such a drug would have required a greater knowledge of the
biochemical processes of the Nipe than any human scientist had. The same
applied to anesthetic gases, or electric shock, or supersonics. There
was no way of determining how much would be required to knock him out or
how much would be required to kill. There were no easy answers.

The only answer was a man called Stanton.

_Boots! Boots! Boots! Boots! Marchin' up and down again!
And there's no discharge in the war!_

Stanton hummed the song in his mind. It seemed that he had been walking
forever through the Kingdom of Hades, while around him twittered the
ghosts of the dead.

_Poor shades_, he thought, entertaining the fancy for a brief moment,
_will I be one of you in a short while?_

There was no answer, though the squeaking continued. The sound of his
feet and the snarling chirping of the rats were the only sounds in the
world.

"Barhop to Barbell," said a voice suddenly, sounding very loud in his
ear, "this is where you have to make your change to the other tunnel."

"Barbell to Barhop. I know. I've been watching the markers."

"Just precaution, Barbell," Captain Greer said. "How do you feel?"

"I'd like to rest for a few minutes, frankly," Stanton said.

"Feeling tired?" There was just the barest tinge of alarm in the
captain's voice.

"No," Stanton said. "I just want to sit down and rest my feet for a few
minutes."

There was a pause. Then the captain's voice came again. "Okay, go ahead
and relax, Barbell. Take ten. But be ready to move fast if I yell. These
alarm systems are