Pell and Kronski left the hotel and started walking along the winding tunnel with the side wall of quartz. On their right the huge valley, with its stark, unearthly landshapes, stretched away. It was near the end of the daylight period and the shadows from the distant peaks, across the valley, were long and deep. Some of them, with little reflected light, seemed to be patches of nothingness. Pell fancied he could step through them into another dimension.
All about them, even here in the side of the mountain, and behind the thick quartz, there was the odd, utterly dead silence of the moon.
Their footsteps echoed sparsely in the corridor.
Pell said to Kronski, "Got the story all straight?"
"Like as if it was true."
"Remember the signal?"
"Sure. Soon as you say we're out of cigarettes. What's the matter, you think I'm a moron, I can't remember?"
Pell laughed and clapped him on the shoulder blade.
Minutes later they turned in from the corridor, went through another, shorter passageway and then came to a door marked: Resident Surgeon. They knocked and a deep voice boomed: "Come in!"