Wass' face, Martin saw, was sober. "I tried to call the ship. No luck." "The shield?" Wass nodded. "What else?" "I don't know--" "If we went to the roof of the tallest building," Rodney offered, "we might--" Martin shook his head. "No. To be effective, the shield would have to cover the city." Wass stared down at the metal street, as if he could look through it. "I wonder where it gets its power?" "Down below, probably. If there is a down below." Martin hesitated. "We may have to...." "What?" Rodney prompted. Martin shrugged. "Let's look." He led the way through a shoulder-high arch in one of the tall buildings surrounding the square. The corridor inside was dim and plain, and he switched on his flashlight, the other two immediately following his example. The walls and the rounded ceiling of the corridor were of the same dull metal as the buildings' facades, and the streets. There were a multitude of doors and arches set into either side of the corridor. It was rather like ... entering a gigantic metal beehive. Martin chose an arch, with beyond it a metal ramp, which tilted downward, gleaming in the pale circle of his torch. A call from Rodney halted him. "Back here," the tall man repeated. "It looks like a switchboard." The three advanced to the end of the central corridor, pausing before a great arch, outlined in the too-careful geometrical figures Martin had come to associate with the city builders. The three torches, shining through the arch, picked out a bank of buttons, handles ... and a thick rope of cables which ran upward to vanish unexpectedly in the metal roof. "Is this it," Wass murmured, "or an auxiliary?" Martin shrugged. "The whole city's no more than a machine, apparently." "Another assumption," Wass said. "We have done nothing but make assumptions ever since we got here." "What would you suggest, instead?" Martin asked calmly. Rodney furtively, extended one hand toward a switch. "No!" Martin said, sharply. That was one assumption they dared not make. Rodney turned. "But--" "No. Wass, how much time have we?" "The ship leaves in eleven hours." "Eleven hours," Rodney repeated. "Eleven hours!" He reached out for the switch again. Martin swore, stepped forward, pulled him back roughly. He directed his flashlight at Rodney's thin, pale face. "What do you think you're doing?" "We have to find out what all this stuff's for!" "Going at it blindly, we'd probably execute ourselves." "We've got to--" "No!" Then, more quietly--"We still have eleven hours to find a way out." "Ten hours and forty-five minutes," Wass disagreed softly. "Minus the time it takes us to get to the lifeboat, fly to the ship, land, stow it, get ourselves aboard, and get the big ship away from the planet. And Captain Morgan can't wait for us, Martin." "You too, Wass?" "Up to the point of accuracy, yes." Martin said, "Not necessarily. You go the way the wind does, always thinking of your own tender hide, of course."