On the third night in the asteroid—the third night by ship-time, since there was neither day nor night in the great empty corridors of the fortress—Burke dreamed his dream again. It was perfectly familiar, from the trees with their trailing leaves, to the markings on the larger moon. He felt the anguished anxiety he'd so often known before. He grasped the hand-weapon and knew that he was ready to fight anything imaginable for the person he feared for. He heard small fluting sounds behind him, and then he knew that someone ran breathlessly behind the swaying foliage just ahead. He felt such relief and exultation that his heart seemed about to burst. He gave a great shout and bounded to meet her—
He waked in the small ship in the entrance tunnel. All was silent. All was still. The lights in the control-compartment of the ship were turned to dim. There was no sound anywhere. The opened air-lock doors, both inner and outer, let in a fan-shaped streak of brightness which lay on the floor.
Burke lay quiet, still wrought up by the vivid emotions of the dream.
He heard a stirring in the compartment below, occupied by Sandy and Pam. Someone came very quietly up the ladder-like stairway. Burke blinked in the semi-darkness. He saw that it was Sandy. She crossed the compartment to the air-lock. Very quietly, she closed the outer door and then the inner. She fastened them.
Burke said, sitting up, "Why'd you do that, Sandy?"
She started violently, and turned.
"Pam can't sleep," she said in a low tone. "She says the fortress is creepy. She feels that there's something hiding in it, something deadly and frightening. When you leave the air-lock open, she's afraid. So I closed it."
"Holmes and Keller are out," said Burke. "Keller's trying to trace down power-leads from the instrument-room to whatever power-source warms and lights everything. We can't lock him out."
Sandy obediently opened the air-lock doors again. She turned toward the ladder leading downward.
"Sandy," said Burke unhappily, "I know I'm acting like a fool."