Cold sweat drenched him. "How can they live without air?" he whispered. "And why didn't they see us?"
There was no answer. But they were safe, for the moment. The light, a shifting web of prismatic colors, showed nothing moving.
They stood on a floor of the glassy black rock. Above and on both sides walls curved away into the wild light—sunlight, apparently, splintered by the shell of the planet. Ahead there was a ebon plain, curving to match the curve of the vault.
Falken stared at it bitterly. There was no haven here. No life as he knew it could survive in this pit. Yet there was life, of some mad sort. Another time, they might not escape.
"Better go back," he said wearily, and turned to catch the rope.
The cleft was gone.
Smooth and unbroken, the black wall mocked him. Yet he hadn't moved more than two paces. He smothered a swift stab of fear.
"Look for it," he snapped. "It must be here."
But it wasn't. They searched, and came again together, to stare at each other with eyes already a little mad.