Apparently, Johnny had turned on his equalizer. Burt saw him on the ground, waiting, and three big leaps brought him there.
Now Johnny was crying.
"What the devil are you crying for? You've jumped around enough—"
"Pop, please. I'm sorry. Get me outa here!"
Johnny was stuck. He was in the spongy ground, up to his ankles. The stuff sucked around his shins, drawing him down further every second, like quicksand. Burt could feel it pulsing as he landed, but it did not suck him in. With the equalizer off, he weighed much less than Johnny did, and now he was tugging at the boy, pulling at his shoulders, grabbing him under the armpits and tugging, tugging....
Johnny came loose suddenly, and Burt soared with him several feet into the air. On the way up, he switched the boy's equalizer off again, and Johnny said:
"You just told me not to, now you do it yourself. What a pop."
Johnny was spoiled and Johnny was precocious, but Burt thought of neither now. Johnny was nothing more than a little bundle which he had to get back to the spaceship. And then they had to leave, all four of them.
The spaceship ... Marcia did not know how to pilot it, she couldn't lift it off the ground. And the sucking, spongy stuff might engulf the ship, take it down into some unknown womb of the world. They'd be marooned. Marcia and Joan—
All of them.