riefly like the weapon
it resembled, and the doors popped a few inches apart, then stuck.
Enough dust had worked into the recesses into which it was supposed to
slide to block it on both sides.

That was old stuff; they ran into that every time they had to force a
door, and they were prepared for it. Somebody went outside and brought
in a power-jack and finally one of the doors inched back to the door
jamb. That was enough to get the lights and equipment through: they all
passed from the room to the hallway beyond. About half the other doors
were open; each had a number and a single word, _Darfhulva_, over it.

[Illustration]

One of the civilian volunteers, a woman professor of natural ecology
from Penn State University, was looking up and down the hall.

"You know," she said, "I feel at home here. I think this was a college
of some sort, and these were classrooms. That word, up there; that was
the subject taught, or the department. And those electronic devices, all
where the class would face them; audio-visual teaching aids."

"A twenty-five-story university?" Lattimer scoffed. "Why, a building
like this would handle thirty thousand students."

"Maybe there were that many. This was a big city, in its prime," Martha
said, moved chiefly by a desire to oppose Lattimer.

"Yes, but think of the snafu in the halls, every time they changed
classes. It'd take half an hour to get everybody back and forth from one
floor to another." He turned to von Ohlmhorst. "I'm going up above this
floor. This place has been looted clean up to here, but there's a chance
there may be something above," he said.

"I'll stay on this floor, at present," the Turco-German replied. "There
will be much coming and going, and dragging things in and out. We should
get this completely examined and recorded first. Then Major Lindemann's
people can do their worst, here."

"Well, if nobody else wants it, I'll take the downstairs," Martha said.

"I'll go along with you," Hubert Penrose told her. "If the lower floors
have no archaeological value, we'll turn them into living quarters. I
like this building: it'll give everybody room to keep out from under
everybody else's feet." He looked down the hall. "We ought to find
escalators at the middle."

* * * * *

The hallway, too, was thick underfoot with dust. Most of the open rooms
were empty, but a few contained furniture, including small seat-desks.
The original prop