"Shh! Quiet," cautioned Arkalion, leading the way down a flight of heavy-duty plastic stairs.
"How do you know your way around here so well?"
"I said quiet."
It was not so much, Temple realized, that Arkalion was really afraid of making noise. Rather, he did not want to answer questions.
Temple smiled in the semi-darkness, heard the steady drip-drip-drip of water off somewhere to his left. Eons before the coming of man on this stopover point to Nowhere, the Martian waters had retreated from the planet's ancient surface and seeped underground to carve, slow drop by drop, the caverns which honey-combed the planet. "You know your way around so well, I'd swear you were a Martian."
Arkalion's soft laugh carried far. "I said there was to be no noise. Please! As for the Martians, the only Martians are here all around you, the men of Earth. Ahh, here we are."
At the bottom of the flight of stairs Temple could see a door, metallic, giving the impression of strength without great weight. Arkalion paused a moment, did something with a series of levers, shook his head impatiently, started all over again.
"What's that for?" Temple wanted to know.
"What do you think? It is a combination lock, with five million possible combinations. Do you want to be here for all of eternity?"