aled beneath my blouse.
The car shot with rapid acceleration down the narrow tunnel.

The tubes in which these magnetic cars (which slid along a few inches
above the floor of the tunnel by localized repeller rays) ran were very
narrow, just the width of the car, and my only danger would come if on
catching up to another car its driver should turn around and look in my
face. If I kept my face to the front, and hunched over so as to conceal
my size, no driver of a following car would suspect that I was not a
Han like himself.

The tube dipped under traffic as it came to a trunk line, and my car
magnetically lagged, until an opening in the traffic permitted it to
swing swiftly into the main line tunnel. At the automatic distance of
ten feet it followed a car in which rode a scantily clad girl, her
flimsy silks fluttering in the rush of air. I cursed my luck. She would
be far more likely to turn around than a man, to see if a man were in
the car behind, and if he were personable--for not even the impending
doom of the city and the public demoralization caused by the "air balls"
had dulled the proclivities of the Han women for brazen flirtation. And
turn around she did.

Before I could lower my head she had seen my face, and knew I was no
Han. I saw her eyebrows arch in surprise. But she seemed puzzled rather
than scared. Before she could make up her mind about me, however, her
car had swung out of the main tunnel on its predetermined course, and my
own automatically was closing up the gap to the car ahead. The passenger
in this one wore the uniform of a medical officer, but he did not turn
around before I swung out of main traffic to the little station at the
head of the shaft.

This particular shaft was intended to serve the very lowest levels
exclusively, and since its single car carried nothing but express
traffic, it was used only by repair men and other specialists who
occasionally had to descend to those levels.

* * * * *

There were only three people on the little platform, which reminded me
very much of the subway stations of the Twentieth Century. Two men and a
girl stood facing the gate of the shaft, waiting for the car to return
from below. One of these was a soldier, apparently off duty, for though
he wore the scarlet military coat he carried no weapons other than his
knife. The other man wore nothing but sandals and a pair of loose short
pants of some heavy and serviceable