Beth showed the others through a doorway braced with old, thick wooden beams, and into a long room. They stepped up on a platform made of worn planks that overlooked a trench. Leading to the trench from the right and left, was a wide tunnel with a dirt floor and walls. The tunnel stretched into blackness in both directions and it stank heavily of the nidges’ mulch meals. The terminal's layout reminded David and Amanda of the subway station they had visited on a trip to New York City, although replacing Terran steel and concrete with dirt and old wood made this station seem more primitive.

Amanda was not impressed. "This is the mass transit system for all of Abraxas?" she asked uncertainly, wondering how her mother would react to the dank place.

Beth smiled apologetically, but Peter was enthusiastic, "Isn’t it great? I love coming here because then I have an excuse to be dirty and musty for the rest of the day."

Beth rolled her eyes. "And why is it that you’re the only one who ever comes out of here covered with mud, I wonder?"

Peter shrugged. "Who knows? But if you’re not going to take advantage of some perfectly good filth, that’s your problem."

Just then, a faint rumbling began in the tunnel. David felt it more than he heard it, with the vibration moving up through the soles of his boots. The rumble grew more pronounced, and he could hear what sounded like strong wind howling down the tunnel toward them. David braced himself; he did not feel particularly stable on the rickety platform.

Soon, the rush of air combined with the vibrations underfoot blocked out all other sound. David felt like his teeth would rattle right out of his mouth if the din grew much louder.

Suddenly, a stooped man with a long, tangled beard and wide, toothless mouth stepped out of the shadows and drew up beside David. He had not heard the man approach over the noise, and his appearance was so startling that David involuntarily jumped back away from him.

Unfortunately, David was close to the edge of the platform. He stumbled off of it, down into the trench, where he sprawled on his back in the moist dirt. David could not hear Amanda's, Peter's, or Beth's shrieks as they gaped down at him, but he could see the terrified expressions on their faces and the frantic movement of their mouths when they yelled.

In the trench, the rumbling was even worse than it had been on the platform, and David could barely sit up for the movement of the ground beneath him. He desperately fought to stand so he could haul himself out of the trench, but when he looked up, he saw a terrifying sight that knocked the breath out of him. Barreling toward him was a massive, mutated worm. Its face had neither eyes nor a nose, only an open, black hole of a mouth with dozens of long, wiggling tentacles surrounding it. David felt like he was looking at an army of pythons emerging from a cave to devour him.

Between the bone rattling shaking underfoot and the terror bearing down on him, David could not move. He threw up his arms to cover his head and yelled, "Stop!"

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