“Something about this cave doesn’t look entirely natural to me,” He suggested to Carter.
Like most of the mountain’s interior, the outer edge of the cavern was less shere rock wall and more a complex arrangement of rock formations with gaps of various sizes in-between. Something about the shape of it looked to Lamont’s eyes as if it had been poured somehow, or melted down from a more discernible structure.
“Something about this cave doesn’t look entirely natural to me,” He suggested to Carter, who was shining his lamp into the dark nooks and crannies near where they had found Rosemary’s second aspirin tablet.
“If you ask me, the mountains themselves don’t look fully natural,” The captain agreed. “On a heavy world like this, I’d expect natural formations to tend toward the low and squat.”
“What did the Martian records say about it?” Lamont asked.
“Temperate,” Francis shrugged, grunting quietly as he pressed his shoulder against a rock formation. “Heavily forested, teeming with life. Phobos said that’s about it—I don’t think the Martians sent anyone to the surface.”
“Do you suppose all their charts will be this helpful?” Lamont quipped.
“As Miss Bishop pointed out, a lot can happen in 50 million years,” Francis reminded him.
“A lot can happen in 50 years,” Lamont reflected.
Carter had been crouched down, working his hands around the edges of a formation consisting of thin, quite regularly shaped columns spaced an inch or two apart. Just then, he pulled out something like a pin. To Lamont’s surprise, the whole formation swung inward as if hinged on the top. Carter had found what looked to be a small grated door.
“It would appear,” The captain said, peering into the opening, “That our suspicions are not unfounded.”
“What’s in there?” Lamont asked, crouching beside him. The opening was just large enough for Carter to fit his head and shoulders through.
“It looks like a kind of ramp, going down. And—yes! I see another tablet.”
“Down it is,” Lamont said without enthusiasm.
“Better to go feet-first, I think,” Said Carter, pulling his head out of the opening and sitting down. “Come on, Townsend. We haven’t got time to waste.”
The newspaperman’s eyes flashed briefly back over the cavern, returning to the silver outline of Rex’s body, lit dimly by the light of the mineral pool. The wind that made its way into the crevices of the mountain had become a low, sustained howl.