You're in bad shape when your emotions force you into acts which you know are foolish.

Worse still, I was doing this in a reckless rush because the Mother Thing had wanted that beacon set before a certain second, now only twelve minutes away, maybe ten. Well, I'd do it, but what sense was it? Say her home star is close by-oh, say it's Proxima Centauri and the wormfaces came from somewhere farther. Even if her beacon works-it still takes over four years for her S.O.S. to reach her friends!

This might have been okay for the Mother Thing. I had an impression that she lived a very long time; waiting a few years for rescue might not bother her. But Peewee and I were not creatures of her sort. We'd be dead before that speed-of-light message crawled to Proxima Centauri. I was glad that I had seen Peewee again, but I knew what was in store for us. Death, in days, weeks, or months at most, from running out of air, or water, or food-or a wormface ship might land before we died-which meant one unholy sabbat of a fight in which, if we were lucky, we would die quickly.

No matter how you figured, planting that beacon was merely "carrying out the deceased's last wishes"-words you hear at funerals. Sentimental folly.

The outer door started to open. Ave, Mother Thing! Nos morituri.

It was cold out there, biting cold, even though I was not yet in the wind. The glow panels were still working and I could see that the tunnel was a mess; the two dozen fractional-pressure stops had ruptured like eardrums. I wondered what sort of bomb could be haywired from stolen parts, kept small enough to conceal two in a body pouch along with some sort of radio rig, and nevertheless have force enough to blow out those panels. The blast had rattled my teeth, several hundred feet away in solid rock.

The first dozen panels were blown inwards. Had she set it off in the middle of the tunnel? A blast that big would fling her away like a feather! She must have planted it there, then come inside and triggered it-then gone back through the lock just as I had. That was the only way I could see it.

It got colder every step. My feet weren't too cold yet, those clumsy mukluks were okay; the wormfaces understood insulation. "Oscar, you got the fires burning?"

("Roaring, chum. It's a cold night.")

"You're telling me!"

Just beyond the outermost burst panel, I found her.

She had sunk forward, as if too tired to go on. Her arms stretched in front of her and, on the floor of the tunnel not quite touched by her tiny fingers, was a small round box about the size ladies keep powder in on dressing tables.

Her face was composed and her eyes were open except that nictitating membranes were drawn across as they had been when I had first seen her in the pasture back of our house, a few days or weeks or a thousand years ago. But she had been hurt then and looked it; now I half expected her to draw back those inner lids and sing a welcome.

I touched her.

She was hard as ice and much colder.

I blinked back tears and wasted not a moment. She wanted that little box placed a hundred yards out on the causeway and the bump on top twisted-and she wanted it done in the next six or seven minutes. I scooped it up. "Righto, Mother Thing! On my way!"

("Get cracking, chum!")

("Thank you, dear Kip... .")

I don't believe in ghosts. I had heard her sing thank-you so many times that the notes echoed in my head.

A few feet away at the mouth of the tunnel, I stopped. The wind hit me and was so cold that the deathly chill in the tunnel seemed summery. I closed my eyes and counted thirty seconds to give time to adjust to starlight while I fumbled on the windward side of the tunnel at a slanting strut that anchored the causeway to the mountain, tied my safety line by passing it around the strut and snapping it back on itself. I had known that it was night outside and I expected the causeway to stand out as a black ribbon against the white "snow" glittering under a skyful of stars. I thought I would be safer on that windswept way if I could see its edges-which I couldn't by headlamp unless I kept swinging my shoulders back and forth-clumsy and likely to throw me off balance or slow me down.

I had figured this carefully; I didn't regard this as a stroll in the garden -not at night, not on Pluto! So I counted thirty seconds and tied my line while waiting for eyes to adjust to starlight. I opened them.

And I couldn't see a darned thing!

Not a star. Not even the difference between sky and ground. My back was to the tunnel and the helmet shaded my face like a sunbonnet; I should have been able to see the walkway. Nothing.

I turned the helmet and saw something that accounted both for black sky and the quake we had felt-an active volcano. It may have been five miles away or fifty, but I could not doubt what it was-a jagged, angry red scar low in the sky.

But I didn't stop to stare. I switched on the headlamp, splashed it on the righthand windward edge, and started a clumsy trot, keeping close to that side, so that if I stumbled I would have the entire road to recover in before the wind could sweep me off. That wind scared me. I kept the line coiled in my left hand and paid it out as I went, keeping it fairly taut. The coil felt stiff in my fingers.

The wind not only frightened me, it hurt. It was a cold so intense that it felt like flame. It burned and blasted, then numbed. My right side, getting the brunt of it, began to go and then my left side hurt more than the right.

I could no longer feel the line. I stopped, leaned forward and got the coil in the light from the headlamp-that's another thing that needs fixing! the headlamp should swivel.

The coil was half gone, I had come a good fifty yards. I was depending on the rope to tell me; it was a hundred-meter climbing line, so when I neared its end I would be as far out as the Mother Thing had wanted. Hurry, Kip!

("Get cracking, boy! It's cold out here.")

I stopped again. Did I have the box?

I couldn't feel it. But the headlamp showed my right hand clutched around it. Stay there, fingers! I hurried on, counting steps. One! Two! Three! Four! ...

When I reached forty I stopped and glanced over the edge, saw that I was at the highest part where the road crossed the brook and remembered that it was about midway. That brook-methane, was it?-was frozen solid, and I knew that the night was cold.

There were a few loops of line on my left arm-close enough. I dropped the line, moved cautiously to the middle of the way, eased to my knees and left hand, and started to put the box down.

My fingers wouldn't unbend.

I forced them with my left hand, got the box out of my fist. That diabolical wind caught it and I barely saved it from rolling away. With both hands I set it carefully upright.

("Work your fingers, bud. Pound your hands together!")

I did so. I could tighten the muscles of my forearms, though it was tearing agony to flex fingers. Clumsily steadying the box with my left hand, I groped for the little knob on top.

I couldn't feel it but it turned easily once I managed to close my fingers on it; I could see it turn.

It seemed to come to life, to purr. Perhaps I heard vibration, through gloves and up my suit; I certainly couldn't have felt it, not the shape my fingers were in. I hastily let go, got awkwardly to my feet and backed up, so that I could splash the headlamp on it without leaning over.

I was through, the Mother Thing's job was done, and (I hoped) before deadline. If I had had as much sense as the ordinary doorknob, I would have turned and hurried into the tunnel faster than I had come out. But I was fascinated by what it was doing.

It seemed to shake itself and three spidery little legs grew out the bottom. It raised up until it was standing on its own little tripod, about a foot high. It shook itself again and I thought the wind would blow it over. But the spidery legs splayed out, seemed to bite into the road surface and it was rock firm.