"Naturally, you will tell all this to prospective C.E.L. members. Now we have something concrete to work with."
"I know. And I will, I will, Mrs. Draper. By the way, how are they going to pick the girl, the one girl?"
"Don't count your chickens, for Heaven's sake! They haven't even studied the situation yet. Well, I'll call you, my dear."
Stephanie hung up, dressed, went about her canvassing. She thought happy thoughts all week.
hh! 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."