Part 5

"What happened," Jim replied softly, "is that a wild hunch of mine worked. Did you ever indulge in Martian _tsith_ stems, Conley? It's horrible, vile stuff; makes anyone, except an addict, violently ill. And it hits you suddenly, like a barrage of rocket-blasts. Well, I gave a whole pouch full--Kaarji's--to that Dim-Ing! D'you know, despite it being an other-dimensional entity, it had some very human qualities? Apparently it was curious, as well as egotistic; it must have investigated and then absorbed those _tsith_ stems, and it became violently ill--at just the right time for us!"

Spurlin had been trying desperately to get the motors started again, but to no avail. Now he approached the others with a worried frown.

"Those motors are so constructed that they can work in two ways. First, they can operate from a direct electronic beam--that's how Bhruulo controlled the car from a distance, and that's the way we've come as far as we have now. But with the destruction of M'Tonak, all the beams are gone!"

"Then you mean--we're stranded here?"

Conley pictured hundreds of miles of ice still lying before them. He remembered that the Cap had already started its break-up, and no man could ever get across it now. Not afoot!

"On the other hand," Spurlin was saying hopelessly, "the motors _should_ work from the electronic emanations of that new metal we found. Even a tiny amount of it. But," he waved his hand to the north, "there it all lies buried and we'll never get to it in a million years!"

Defeat was in his voice.

For a moment the men milled about, looking at each other helplessly, before Jim remembered something.

"I've gone through too much," he grinned, "in the past few days to let a minor thing like this stymie me." With a feigned nonchalance, he reached into his pocket and drew forth a piece of metal. It was the rounded medallion which Kaarji had given him, and he'd forgotten until now.

Spurlin's eyes lighted, he seized it eagerly and went back to work.

Jim looked again toward the vast hollow to the north, and he spoke softly to Conley standing beside him:

"Spurlin's wrong, though. We'll get to that metal again, and Spurlin will see his super spaceship come true. It'll be a tremendous mining job, but--well, at least we know the metal's there, and it'll wait for us."

The sudden hum of the motors was a welcome sound in their ears, and minutes later they were speeding smoothly back to the south.