"What good would one gun do now?"
"None, I guess," Zen said, helplessly. "But as they try to run me down, I'd like to have it in my hands. I'd at least take a few of them with me before they got me."
"We will survive," West said, his voice a mumble.
Zen pointed through the opening to the bodies lying on the floor below them. "They didn't," he said.
The craggy man groaned. "If I had time I would try to explain to you that survival does not lie in the body and can never be achieved there."
Zen answered, "I have no time for metaphysics. For purposes of defense, I'm taking command." He felt foolish as he spoke. What resources were his to command, what troops, what weapons? He knew the answer as the thought crossed his mind. If he only had the remnants of the broken column moving down the mountains after its disastrous encounter with Cuso's blooper. An idea came into his mind. Perhaps he could have these troops. "Where's my pack?" he demanded. His radio equipment was in that.
"It went with your gun into the deep hole," West said. "The deep hole is a fault the old miners uncovered here. It's miles deep." He shook his head.
"Damn!" Kurt Zen said. The depression in him was as deep as the fault in the mountain. "Isn't there any place where we can hide?"
"Many places," West said. "This whole mountain is a honeycomb of tunnels and shafts. We have explored fifteen separate levels and there are others which lie below the present water line." He did not protest at Zen's statement that the latter was taking command, but seemed willing to submit to the colonel's authority, and also interested in seeing how Zen would handle the problem.
"Then find us a place to hide until we can decide what to do to eliminate Cuso's men. A hiding hole first, then radio equipment. As soon as I can gain access to short-wave transmitting equipment, I can have a regiment of paratroopers on their way here."