The next morning the Hellhounds came, a small ship quartering down out of the dawn light of the great red sun. It came down on a long smooth slant and landed not more than half a mile away, plowing a swath through the mushroom forest as it grounded. There was no mistaking its identity, for its lines were distinctive and the insignia upon its bow was the insignia that both Caroline and Gary had seen many times on the ships that screamed down to lay bombs upon the mighty city of the Engineers.
"And us," said Gary, "with nothing but hand guns in the locker and a ship that we can't lift.”
He saw the stricken look on Caroline's face and tried to make amends.
"Maybe they won't know who we are," he said. "Maybe they…”
"Don't let's fool ourselves," Caroline told him. "They know who we are, all right. More than likely we're the reason that they're here. Maybe they…”
She hesitated and Gary asked, "Maybe they what?”
"I was thinking," she said, "that they might have twisted the tunnel. The mathematics might have been all right. Somebody might have brought us here.
It might have been the Hellhounds who trapped us here, knowing what we had, knowing the knowledge that we carried. They might have brought us here and now they've come to finish up the job.”
"They were not the ones who brought you here," said a voice out of nowhere.
"You were brought here but they were not the ones who brought you. They were brought themselves.”