He went only a short distance before reaching the outer wall. There he extinguished his lantern, for three narrow slits of daylight came through the rock.

He looked through the middle slit first and saw nothing but the open sea. When he moved to the slit on the far right he could see the red sun resting on the water and just beginning its descent into the sea. For a moment he forgot everything in the beauty of the western sky. Seldom had he left Blue Valley to watch a sunset over the Caribbean Sea.

He blinked his eyes often in the brightness of the setting sun and suddenly realized that the glow from it was unusually strong. His gaze left the sun to search the waters around him for any vapors, any steaming bubbles to indicate that a flaming mass of molten metal had fallen. But he saw nothing of the sort so his eyes returned to the setting sun.

The huge red ball was now half obliterated by the sea, and the sky was aglow with all the colors in the universe. But the unusual brightness still marked the sun, and Steve blinked his eyes again. Once more he thought of the meteor. Perhaps it had struck directly in the path of his vision. Perhaps its steaming vapors were rising from the water and causing the golden glow that enveloped the brilliant red of the setting sun. He turned away, waiting for the sun to set completely so he’d know.

Minutes later the sun disappeared but the bright light on the water remained, the same brilliant glow that had come to Blue Valley! Steve told himself that it was being caused by gases from the meteor, still hot, still smoldering at the bottom of the sea. This was what he had hoped to see! This was why he had come! But although this made sense to him, there was no lessening to the pounding of his heart.

He squinted his eyes, hoping to see better. It was a nebulous, glowing mass of light and transparent, for he could make out the red sky directly behind it. Now he was certain it was produced by vapors rising from the sea. It was less bright than it had been only a moment ago. The meteor was losing its self-contained heat. The sea was crushing it, transforming it into nothing but heavy metal, fathoms upon fathoms deep.

Suddenly Steve thought he saw a movement within the golden mass. He tried to smile at this illusion but found he couldn’t move his lips. Nothing was out there except vapors, he reminded himself. He reached for the binoculars hanging from his neck. Before he could get them to his eyes he saw another slight movement, then it too was gone.

He focused the binoculars many minutes before he became certain of what he had thought he’d seen twice before.

At first the object had no color or shape. Then as it became separated from the mass it appeared silver and needle-like against the background of red sky. It traveled downward, just above the water, and that was the last he saw of it. He didn’t know if it had climbed back into the heavens or had sunk into the depths of the sea.

He was frightened but it wasn’t the same kind of fear as when he had thought the end of the world had come. Never again would he feel such total, all-engulfing fear as that had been. It was as if he had suffered the very worst that could happen to anyone and, having survived, was stronger for it. Yet he didn’t take his eyes from the glowing mass. He watched its brightness fade until it was nothing at all … only a small, round patch of grayish-white floating on the sea.

Steve held the binoculars up to his eyes until the world outside was as black as the tunnel … but even then he could tell where it was, for the patch was luminous. To anyone else it would have been nothing but the phosphorescence of a tropical sea.