r. But gradually the arcades
and overhead viaducts, cross balconies and catwalks which spanned the
canyon street between the giant buildings became a roof. It spread,
now terraced and sloped to top the lofty buildings, like a great
rumpled sheet propped by the knees of sleeping giants. Some of the
roof was of opaque alumite, dark patches, alternating with the great
glassite panes which in places admitted the daylight.

Our little tram sped along southward, wending its way over the
terraces. Save for the guards and lookouts in their occasional
cubbies, and the air-traffic directors in their towers, we were alone
up here. The roof was tangled with air-pipes, line-wire conduits,
aerials, arterial systems of the ventilating and lighting devices. As
far as one could see the ventilators stood fronting the night breeze
like listening ears. There were water tanks, great cross-bulkheads and
flumes to handle the rain and snow. A few traffic towers maintained
order in the overhead air-lanes. Their beacons shot up into the sky
when the passing lights marked the thinly-strewn trinight traffic.

We were stopped at intervals, but in each case were passed promptly.

"Nothing yet, Gregg?"

"No."

Anita's channel remained empty. It was, I suppose, no more than ten
minutes during which we sped south along the grotesque maze of the
roof; but to us it was an eternity. If only some message would come!

"I'll pull up here."

"Yes."

I gathered up my little audiphone, thrust it under my dark flowing
cloak. If only our cloaks were magnetic!

We leaped from our car. "In a rush, Haljan?" asked a guard.

"That's us. Orders from Mr. Brayley."

We left him and plunged into a descending automatic lift. A drop of a
thousand feet; we shot downward past all the deserted levels, past the
ground-level, the undersurface transportation lanes, the sub-river
tubes, the sub-cellar, down to the very bottom of the city.

"Come on, Gregg. Two segments from here."

We advanced at a run. At this hour of night, hardly a pedestrian was
in evidence. It was an arched vaulted corridor, almost a tunnel, dimly
blue-lit with short lengths of fluorescent tubes at intervals on the
ceiling. For all the vaunted mechanisms of our time, the air here was
heavy and fetid. Moisture dripped from the concrete roof. It lay on
the metal pavement of the ground; the smell of it was dank, tomb-like.

There were frequent cross-tunnels. We turned eastward into one of
them.