"Live almost forever," she responded. "Whether we could make them work for us—"
The sun was almost down before Klev decided, but then he chirped and clicked for a good three hours. The water caves could be reached, he said, but some of the vora burrows through which they must crawl were so small it would be impossible to carry him, and his own strength was insufficient. And the distance from the water caves to the surface was too great for him to reach the water-voras by thought alone, the usual method.
"You made the screen-vora work," Nick reminded Susan.
She was uncertain. "Water-voras are different. But I'll try."
The moon shadows were too black to permit them to study Klev's chart during the night. Klev slept, with the patience and resignation only age can bring. Once or twice Sue nodded in Nick's arms, but he remained fully awake, thinking.
In the first light of dawn Martian and Earthman studied the diagram together, but it was already hot when Nick turned his back on the original and reproduced it in another patch of sand. Klev checked it and nodded approval.
"Let's go," Nick said, starting to rise.
Klev restrained him and fumbled in the torn folds of his clothing to produce a glowing sphere the size of a marble. It seemed to be a portable form of the glow-plates with which he was familiar.
"Thanks," he said. "Take it easy until we get back—I hope."
The Martian understood the sense though not the actual words.