At the next one, however, he spent more time. Instead of carrying the communicator with him, he cached it under a bush near the road and disappeared entirely under water. It was utterly black below the surface, and fit had to trust entirely to his sense of touch; and remembering what he had seen of the walls of the empty quarries, he dared not swim too rapidly for fear of braining himself against an outcrop of granite. In conse-quence, it took him over half an hour to get a good idea of the pit’s qualifications as a hiding place. The verdict was not too good, but possible.
Thrykar finally emerged, collected his communicator, and proceeded to the next quarry.
He spent several hours in examining the great shafts. There were seven altogether; two were in use, and enclosed by the fence he had found, one was rendered unusable by the embarrassing presence of the street lamp; so the remaining four claimed all his attention. The one he had found first was the last, and farthest from the town; but it was the adjacent one which finally proved the most suitable. Not only was it the only one at all set back from the road — a drive about twenty yards in length led down, to the water — but it was deeply undercut about thirty-five feet below the surface, on the side toward the mountain. The hollow thus made was not large enough to hide the hull of the ship altogether, but it would be a great help. Thrykar felt quite satisfied as he emerged from the water after his second examination of this recess. Recovering the small case of the communi-cator from its last hiding place, he tapped out the signal he had agreed on with Tes to announce his return. Then he held it up toward the mountain, moving it slowly from side to side and up and down until a small hexagonal plate set in the case suddenly glowed a faint red.