Fifteen minutes later the two ships grounded at the Municipal Skyport in Poughkeepsie. Brent parked the ship and followed his quarry down to the street level. Except for a certain stiffness in his movements, Di Costa seemed normal. He walked quickly and turned into an office building before Brent could catch up with him. Throwing discretion aside, Brent broke into a run. He turned into the lobby just as the elevator door closed. He pressed the call button but the car continued to rise. The indicator stopped at four, then slowly sank down again. He was too close to the end to even consider stopping now. He stepped into the self-service elevator and pressed four. The door closed and the car began to ... descend! With the realization that he was trapped came the knowledge that there was very little he could do about it. Just wait and see who--or _what_--might be outside the car when the door opened! The elevator dropped down to a level that must have been far beneath the basement floor. The door slid slowly back. The room was _not_ what he had expected. Not that he had any idea of what there would be; it was just--just that this room was so ordinary! Ordinary--except for the side wall. That was an impossibility. It was a glass wall looking into a vast tank of swirling water--only there was no glass! It was the surface of the ocean standing on its side. He felt himself drawn into it, falling into it. The sensation vanished as the wall suddenly turned jet black. He became aware for the first time that he wasn’t alone in the room. There was a girl behind a chrome desk. A lovely girl with straight bronze hair and green eyes. “An untrained person shouldn’t watch that machine, Mr. Dalgreen; it has a negative effect on the mind. Won’t you please step in?” His jaw dropped. “How do you know my name? Who are you? What is this pl....” “If you’ll be seated, I’ll be with you in a moment.” Brent saw that the elevator would stay here until he got out. He stepped into the room, and the door sliding shut behind him didn’t help his morale any. He was into it up to his neck, and the other team had taken complete charge. He sat. The redhead pulled the sheet of paper out of her typewriter and pushed it into the strange wall. It once more had the undersea look. Brent kept his eyes averted until she turned to him with a slight frown furrowing her forehead. “You have been very interested in Arthur Di Costa’s activities, Mr. Dalgreen. Perhaps there are some questions you would like to ask me?” “That, lady, is the world’s best understatement! Just _what_ happened to him today ... and what is this place?” She leaned forward and pointed. “You’re responsible for Mr. Di Costa’s visit here today. You were observed following him, so we brought him in, in the hope that you would come also. The message he received was a code word designed to trigger an automatic response planted in his mind. He came directly here, controlled by the posthypnotic suggestion.”