was the trouble? My mind is in a whirl. Why were they shouting?
What is the danger?"

"We have our troubles," said Howard. His eyes avoided Graham's enquiry.
"This is a time of unrest. And, in fact, your appearance, your waking
just now, has a sort of connexion--"

He spoke jerkily, like a man not quite sure of his breathing. He stopped
abruptly.

"I don't understand," said Graham.

"It will be clearer later," said Howard.

He glanced uneasily upward, as though he found the progress of the lift
slow.

"I shall understand better, no doubt, when I have seen my way about
a little," said Graham puzzled. "It. will be--it is bound to be
perplexing. At present it is all so strange. Anything seems possible.
Anything In the details even. Your counting, I understand, is
different."

The lift stopped, and they stepped out into a narrow but very long
passage between high walls, along which ran an extraordinary number of
tubes and big cables.

"What a huge place this is!" said Graham. "Is it all one building? What
place is it?"

"This is one of the city ways for various public services. Light and so
forth."

"Was it a social trouble--that--in the great roadway place? How are you
governed? Have you still a police?" "Several," said Howard.

"Several?"

"About fourteen."

"I don't understand."

"Very probably not. Our social order will probably seem very complex to
you. To tell you the truth, I don't understand it myself very clearly.
Nobody does. You will, perhaps--bye and bye. We have to go to the
Council."

Graham's attention was divided between the urgent necessity of his
inquiries and the people in the passages and halls they were traversing.
For a moment his mind would be concentrated upon Howard and the halting
answers he made, and then he would lose the thread in response to some
vivid unexpected impression. Along the passages, in the halls, half the
people seemed to be men in the red uniform. The pale blue canvas
that had been so abundant in the aisle of moving ways did not appear.
Invariably these men looked at him, and saluted him and Howard as they
passed.

He had a clear vision of entering a long corridor, and there were a
number of girls sitting on low seats and as though in a class. He saw
no teacher, but only a novel apparatus from which he fancied a voice
proceeded. The girls regarded him and his conductor, he thought, with
curiosity and astonishment. But he was hurried on before he could form a