zoomed

ring as the car came along the platform.
Kartr climbed out and stood looking about him. This place was at least three times the size of the one from which they had embarked. And other tunnels ran from it in several directions. It was lighted after a fashion. But not brightly enough to make Rolth don his goggles again.
“Now”—the Faltharian stood with his hands resting on his hips, surveying their port—“how do we get out—or rather up—from here?”
There were those other tunnels, but, on their first inspection, no other sign of an exit. Yet Kartr was sure that this platform must have one. It was air which betrayed it—a puff of warmer, less dank breeze which touched him. Rolth must have felt it too for he turned in the direction from which it had come.
They followed that tenuous guide to a flat round plate at the foot of another well. Kartr crooked his neck until his throat strained. Far above he was sure he could see a faint haze of light. But they certainly couldn’t climb— He turned to Rolth bitterly disappointed.
“That’s that! We might as well go back—”
But the Faltharian was engrossed by a panel of buttons on the wall.
“I don’t think we need do that. Let’s just see if this works!” He pressed the top button in the row. Then he jumped back to clutch his companion in a tight hold as the plate came to life under them and they zoomed up.
Both rangers instinctively dropped and huddled together. Kartr swallowed to clear the pressure in his buzzing ears. At least, he thought thankfully, the shaft was not closed at the top. They were not being borne upward to be crushed against an unyielding surface overhead.
Twice they flashed by other landing places abutting the shaft. After they passed the second