HIS WORDS WERE CUT off. The Ruler had given another command. The Radaks gripping us were pulling us away—shoving us back into the dim crimson tunnel from which they had brought us. I turned to look behind me. The stiff figures of Mack and Vivian still were visible, walking in a trance, following the square, box-like little Radak who marched silently ahead of them. For a moment they wound along the edge of the slope; then the crimson murk of radiance enveloped them and they were gone.
Roughly Shorty and I were shoved along the tunnel by our captors. Then a rock panel slid aside. We were shoved in, and the panel slid closed.
“Well,” Shorty murmured. “That’s that. We’re in a jam, Bob—a damn weird jam.”
It was soundless in here, and darker than out in the main open grotto. But still there w
