ey left the car, a flexible metal arm snaked from one of the smooth
walls, attached itself to the front bumper of the vehicle, and whisked
it into a cubicle which opened to receive it and closed behind it.

A power-driven wheelchair sped up to them. Sitting in it was a fat man
of middle age, with pendulous jowls and a totally bald head. His
expression was a sardonic scowl.

"You have the plans?" he asked the girl.

"Sweetheart here has them."

"I don't know what you're talking about," the young man said.

"He knows, all right," the girl said. "He pretends to be innocent, but
that is merely his training. He has them under a sticking plaster on
the small of his back."

"Remove your coat and shirt," commanded the man in the wheelchair.

At that moment the floor shuddered under their feet, a gong began to
clang insistently, and the giant machinery, which had been silent,
throbbed into life.

The man in the wheelchair whirled and was off, shouting commands to men
who materialized high on the walls in cylindrical turrets which the
visitor could only think of as battle stations.

"What _is_ this place?" he asked.

He got no answer. Instead the girl grabbed his arm and pulled him off to
the edge of the gigantic metal room. An opening appeared in the wall and
she pushed him through it into a room beyond. The entranceway snapped
shut behind them and when he looked he could see no door. The room also
was windowless.

Naomi went to a metal table and as she looked down into its surface it
became a screen. Mirrored in it was the mountainous countryside they had
driven through to get to the barn--or what had seemed to be a barn from
the outside. He looked over her shoulder.

They saw as from a height. There was the light car that had chased them
from the frontier. Standing near it was a man in an officer's uniform
and another in civilian clothes. They were talking and gesturing. Beside
the car was a tank. As they watched, its gun fired and the structure
they were in shuddered, but they heard no sound.

Lumbering up the mountain road were more tanks and a self-propelled gun.
One of the tanks became enveloped in smoke and flames as they watched.
After a moment the smoke cleared. The tank was gone; where it had been
there was a deep crater.

Gradually, the figures in the drama below grew smaller. At the same time
the vista widened, so that they saw more and more countryside. It
twisted beneath them and the horizon came g