To travel faster, and also to avoid meeting any denizens of the copse, they went by way of an area where the vegetation parted to form a lane about sixty feet wide, as though an enormous plow had gone through. Nothing grew here but a velvety lichen and moss. Hungry, tired, with only one flashlight, they decided to pitch their tent outside the ship. The Physicist had such a terrible thirst—their water supply had run out on the trek back—that he entered the tunnel and went into the ship. He was gone a long time. They were inflating the tent when they heard him shouting in the tunnel. They hurried over and helped him out. He was trembling, so upset that he couldn't speak. "What happened? Calm down!" they shouted. The Captain grabbed him firmly by the shoulders. The Physicist pointed to the hull looming above them. "There was something in there." "What was it?" "I have no idea." "How do you know something was there?" "I entered the navigation room by mistake.
