It was then that his left leg began to burn. Down below the knee it was, a knife-edged burning sensation which became worse with each passing second. Someone had heated a knife white-hot, had applied its sharp point to the nerve-endings of his leg—and then twisted. It felt like that.
Screaming hoarsely, Steve fell, watched through burning eyes as the stone worm commenced crawling laboriously away. It was LeClarc who went after the worm and retrieved it, but Teejay knelt at Steve's side and, surprisingly, real concern was in her voice when it came over the radio.
"What's the trouble, Stedman?"
"I don't know," Steve gritted. "I'm hot all over—and my leg feels like it's on fire. Yeah, right there—ow!—go easy!"
Teejay frowned or at least Steve guessed she frowned by the way she spoke. "There's nothing much we can do about it, Stedman. Seems to be a hole—just a pinprick, but a hole—in the asbestos. It's a wonder you weren't screaming bloody murder before this. How's the air?"
It was getting hard to breathe, Steve realized, but dimly, for his senses were receding into a fog of half-consciousness. Something hissed in his ears and he knew Teejay had turned the outside dial of his air-pump all the way over. It made him feel momentarily better, but the pain still cut into his leg.
"I've got the worm," said LeClarc. "But what happened to him?" He asked the question innocently—too innocently.
Teejay didn't answer. Instead: "Can you walk, Stedman?"
"I—I don't think so."
"Then I'll carry you. But remember this: if we get you back all right, you can thank the twenty-second century feminist movement. Can you picture an old-fashioned gal slinging a man over her shoulder and toting him away to safety like a sack of grain? Here we go."