“That’s stupid!” Again he spoke aloud. And, just because he did feel uneasy, he moved. All the frustrations of the past hours built up in him a raging desire to do something—anything—just so long as it was what he wanted to do and not at another’s orders.

Nevertheless, Ross continued to move slowly, for the space beyond that open door was as deep and dark as the room he left. To squeeze along one wall, using an outstretched arm as a guide, was the best procedure, he decided.

A few feet farther on, his shoulder slipped from the surface and he half tumbled into another open door. But there was the wall again, and he clung to it thankfully. Another door . . . Ross paused, trying to catch some faint sound, the slightest hint that he was not alone in this blindman’s maze. But without even air currents to stir it, the blackness itself took on a solidity which encased him as a congealing jelly.

The wall ended. Ross kept his left hand on it, flailed out with his right, and felt his nails scrape across another surface. The space separating the two surfaces was wider than any doorway. Was it a cross-corridor? As he was about to make a wider arm sweep, he heard a sound. He was not alone.

Ross went back to the wall. Flattening himself against the wall, Ross tried to control the volume of his own breathing in order to catch the slightest whisper of the other noise. He discovered that lack of sight confuses the ear. He could not identify those clicks, that wisp of fluttering sound that might be air displaced by the opening of another door.

Finally, he detected something moving at floor level. Someone or something must be creeping, not walking, toward him. Ross pushed back around the corner. It never occurred to him to challenge the crawler. An encounter in the dark could be dangerous. Who was his fellow explorer?