mistyped "emerge" command after bootstrap - system

[jodansmif]

After I got my trusty old PII 233 bootstrapped (and that was a while), I was all excited about moving on to stage two. So I consulted the manual, and immediately proceeded to type "# emerge -- pretend system | less". The obvious problem is that I have an extra space. Well, I recieved this error : "!!! Error: -- is an invalid option. (END)"

The problem is that I can't get back to a command prompt. Anything I type, any key combination elicts a beeping noise and then no response on screen. I really don't want to restart since it took so long to bootstrap. I did try to switch to another console with "Alt-F2"... I did get a BASH promt there, but when I typed "emerge system", I got a BASH error "-bash: emerge: command not found". And I did remember to update my environment after I bootstrapped (ie. with "source /etc/profile").

The last thing I tried was a "PS" command in a working terminal, but there's only three processes: login, bash and ps.

There's probably a real easy solution to this... I'm just not seeing it however.

[Tii]

First try pressing q. If that doesn't work try ctrl+c.

[jodansmif]

wow, i feel a bit silly now