"Yes. I am going now to turn the current into the Red Globe." I strove not to show my emotion; I thought he might dismiss my guard--and he, Zetta and I might take the walk alone. If I could watch my chance and spring upon him. But he bade the guard follow close behind us. It was a dark, overcast night. Our little town by the dried river bank was almost in the center of the circular barrage lines. From here it was some five miles to the north of the barrage. * * * * * We walked over the slightly undulating dead-gray waste of what had been the Brazilian farm country. The ground was covered with a gray dust, like burned powder. Graff and Zetta and my guard could have leaped over the distance in a few minutes. Graff was impatient, contemptuous of my slow progress. He forced me forward at a trot. We passed the occasional towers he had built; a few sailing platforms on the summits of the slopes. The purple projectors standing on the ground at intervals were all humming, casting up their purple haze into the still night air. Ahead of us loomed the red curtain of the barrage. The night now was filled with its howl. A Braun appeared from the darkness--one of the interior ground guards. His white, half-naked body, with bullet head of clipped white hair, was edged, lurid with the reflected crimson glow. Goggles were on his eyes--thick glass cones projecting out grotesquely; his ears were muffled with small wire grids. He spoke to Graff, and stood deferentially aside to let us pass. The stone house was set close behind the barrage, bathed in the crimson--a small, one-storied house with a single door and no windows. At the door two guards stopped us. My personal guards waited outside. The room we entered was tiny, with one small white light. Evidently the sleeping room of these two interior guards. They wore goggles and ear-grids, and tight trousers and smock of black, insulating fabric; a cap with a black mask, now raised; and black gloves. Here, near the broadcasting of the Infra-red Control, exposed to its nearness over a long period, the men needed utter protection. A rack on the wall held other similar protecting garments, masks, goggles and ear-grids. "We will not need them," said Graff. "We will be here but a moment. Jus' a moment--but long enough!" The room had one interior doorway--a small, round opening with a heavy bull's-eye door. We stooped to pass through; emerging into a low, black-vaulted room. On a small railed platform stood the two little globes. Another man was here, robed in the tight-fitting black garments; gloved, masked and goggled. Grotesque executioner! He murmured to Graff, and stood aside. There was a tense moment. The room was dim, and dead silent. No windows. No opening save the round doorway into the room through which we had entered.