na did not return, what would
he do? He could not operate the Time-cage. He would go to the
officials of the palace; he thought cynically of the extraordinary
changes time had brought to New York City, to all the world. These
humans now must be very fatuous. To the mechanisms they had relegated
all the work, all industrial activity. Inevitably, through the
generations, decadence must have come. Mankind would be no longer
efficient; that was an attribute of the machines. Larry told himself
that these officials, knowing of impending trouble with the Robots,
were fatuously trustful that the storm would pass without breaking.
They were, indeed, as we very soon learned.

Larry ate a little of the food which was in the room, then lay down on
the couch. He did not intend to sleep, but merely to wait until after
dawn; and if Tina had not returned by then he would do something
drastic about it. But what? He lay absorbed by his gloomy thoughts....

But they were not all gloomy. Some were about Tina--so very human, and
yet so strange a little Princess.

CHAPTER XVII

_Harl's Confession_

Larry was awakened by a hand upon his shoulder. He struggled to
consciousness, and heard his name being called.

"Larry! Wake up, Larry!"

Tina was bending over him, and it was late afternoon! The day for
which he had been waiting had come and gone; the sun was dropping low
in the west behind the shining river; the dam showed frowning, with
the Power House clinging to its side like an eagle's eyrie.

Tina sat on Larry's couch and explained what she had done. Tugh and
she had gone to the nearby laboratory building. The Robots were
sullen, but still obedient, and had admitted them. The other
Time-traveling cage was there, lying quiescent in its place, but it
was unoccupied.

None of the Robots would admit having seen Migul; nor the arrival of
the cage; nor the strangers from the past. Then Tugh and Tina had
started down into the subterranean caverns. But it was obviously very
dangerous; the Robots at work down there were hostile to their
Princess; so Tugh had gone on alone.

"He says he can control the Robots," Tina explained, "and Larry, it
seems that he can. He went on and I came back."

"Where is he now? Why didn't you wake me up?"

"You needed the sleep," she said smilingly; "and there was nothing you
could do. Tugh is not yet come. He must have gone a long distance;
must surely have learned where Migul is hiding. He should be