"There's some light ahead," he whispered.
"I know."
"A piece of the sky, I think."
They crept toward it, Jenny's engine but the barest sigh withinthe great chambers of rock.
They stopped at the threshold to the light. The i-r shielddropped again.
It was a sand-and-shale canyon that he looked upon. Hugeslantings and overhangs of rock hid all but the far end from any eyein the sky. The light was pale, at the far end, and there was nothingunusual beneath it.
But nearer...
Murdock blinked.
Nearer, in the dim light of morning and in the shadows, stood thegreatest junkheap Murdock had ever seen in his life.
Pieces of cars, of every make and model, were heaped into a smallmountain before him. There were batteries and tires and cables andshock absorbers; there were fenders and bumpers and headlamps andheadlamp housings; there were doors and windshields and cylinders andpistons, carburetors, generators, voltage regulators, and oil pimps.
Murdock stared.
"Jenny," he whispered, "we've found the graveyard of the autos!"
A very old car, which Murdock had not even distinguished from thejunk during that first glance, jerked several feet in their directionand stopped as suddenly. The sound of rivet heads scoring ancientbrake drums screeched in his ears. Its tires were completely bald,and the left front one was badly in need of air. Its right frontheadlamp was broken and there was a crack in its windshield. It stoodthere before the heap, its awakened engine making a terrible rattlingnoise.
"What's happening?" asked Murdock. "What is it?"
"He is talking to me," said Jenny. "He is very old. Hisspeedometer has been all the way around so many times that he forgets