CHAPTER XX

"What is it?" asked Circe, her voice wild with fright. "Pink, darling, what is it? Are you hurt?"

It was Circe who was holding him. Sobbing with relief, he said into the radio, "No, no, baby, I'm fine, I'm wonderful."

Her answering cry was a tiny sound of joy and affection. "I wish I could kiss you," she said, "but there are two spacesuits in the way."

He found her hand and squeezed it hard. "I wish I could see you, Smitty," he said, "but either I'm blind or--"

"Oh, I should have told you at once. I turned off our chest-lamps."

"But where are we?"

"Not far from where you fell." Her hand was a comfort in his, as much so as a squad of Space Marines marching down to greet them would have been. "You flew past me like a kicked football, Pink, and I veered off to see if you were okay. When you fell and didn't move, the first thing I did was snap off the lamps. About a second afterwards, the giants went past. They have a weird kind of glow in the dark. I think they could have seen us--certainly they don't exist blind in this ink-pool--but there's a ridge of rock and we were pretty well hidden behind it. I dragged you about forty feet and found this hole and we've been lying here ever since."

"The others," he said, remembering.

"I've been in touch with Daley all the time. He and Calico ran into a lot of trouble and Calico got a broken leg. Joe Silver took him back to the ship. Daley and Jerry found each other and fought off a horde of giants. Every man got all his bottles full of 'specimens' and then used up most of his lead. Sparks--" she hesitated a moment--"Sparks is dead. So is Randy Kinkare."

Pink said quietly into the dark, "I don't think Randy would mind that. He didn't have much of a face left."

"Whatever that first one did to burn him, that's the weapon they used on him and Sparks. Both of them were burnt to a...."

"Okay," he said. "Okay, okay."

"So Daley said they'd try to find us; but everyone got mixed up in the caves, and there hasn't been a sign or sound of anyone for half an hour."

"Half an hour?" The flesh chilled down his back. "How long have I been out?"

"I don't know. A couple of hours."

"My Lord! The _Elephant's Child_ is to be blown up two hours from the minute we left her!"

"Daley said Silver was going to countermand that order."

Pink groaned heavily. "He can't! Jackson had my absolute command on it, and Jackson would see himself and Silver and the whole lot of them dead before he'd fail to carry out a command of mine. That was important; we calculated that two hours was more than enough to expend all the ammo, and that if we weren't back by then, the hull would be crawling with giants. Every bullet aboard came out with us. We couldn't take the chance of the ship blasting off with giants on her, maybe in the form of gnats or smoke or--no," he finished, "Silver, if he tried to change my order, is either dead or unconscious or in the brig right now." He lifted his left hand. "I've got to check the time," he said, and for an instant switched on the dial of his glove watch.

It was a hundred and two minutes after landing time.

He had eighteen minutes to get back to the _Elephant's Child_.