"Here are shoes."
A small pile of shoes was in a corner of the room; wide, resilient suction soles, built like sandals. They were very large, but the things were so placed that it seemed we could fasten them to our boots.
"But not now, Snap."
We snatched up four pairs of the shoes.
There seemed nothing else to do. Could we get the door open? Snap was already fumbling at it. "Accursed thing! It won't give."
Then it slid open. The dim corridor was visible. No one, nothing, out there. "Come on, Gregg! In a rush!"
We went like bouncing rubber figures up the incline ladder.
"Snap, watch out!" He all but cracked his head with an upward leap. Every instant we expected to be set upon. There was a terraced upper hall, black with shadow; dark ovals of doorways led into rooms.
No one here. As yet we were not discovered.
We stood at the intersection of two corridors. One went almost vertically up, like a chimney extending into the dome peak of the globe. Its sides were latticed; we could go up it hand over hand, like monkeys. The other sloped at an angle downward.