While his father was enjoying a short rest at home, Tilloo managed to get hold of his security card. Then, evading his watchful mother’s eye, he made his way to the forbidden passage. A metal door barred his entry. However, he had watched his father slip the magic card into a slot. He did the same and the door opened noiselessly. He saw a well-lit passage. Snatching the card which had come out of another slot in the wall, Tilloo started his march along a gentle upward slope.

Once he emerged from his underground home, Tilloo hoped to see the sun if it was day time or the stars, if it was night.

Tilloo’s father advised him not to reach the surface of the planet as an ordinary person could not survive there. The reason for this was that the air at the surface was too thin to breathe and the temperature was so low that one could freeze to death.

People were forced to live in underground homes because the sun, which had provided them with sustenance, had turned hostile. It changed only slightly, but the change was sufficient to upset the balance of nature on the planet. First the birds became extinct, then the animals and finally the fishes. The superior technology of human beings enabled them to survive underground.