"The way is dangerous," she said rapidly. "You might not come back. And I must see that my father is protected. Give me an order on your bank or lawyer for all the evidence you have against him; for whatever crimes or stupidities he may have committed." "How do you know such an order will be honored?" Pao Chung muttered speculatively. "Once I am free--" The girl tossed her head till the bell of ebony hair swung dangerously. "It had better be honored," she warned crisply. "For there is only one way back ... if you ever come back. And I can control it. I don't think you will like your surroundings well enough to remain there indefinitely." Pao Chung bowed to the inevitable. Angel chuckled moodily, and Bat Ferris faced Teucrete with admiration on his pleasantly ugly features. "Well done," he praised. "Is there a price for me?" "No price to a man who likes animals. I sensed that in you as we passed the cages." Impulsively, the girl leaned toward Ferris and forced her lips violently on his. "That is for luck, gamma-man. On the house, but the next one might cost you dearly. Watch yourself." Ferris clung to the sanctuary of masculine silence. Pao Chung glowered sullenly, and Angel's amusement sent iridescent ripples glinting from his wings. "How about me?" he demanded. "No kiss, no price," she told him, "but a word of advice, mutant. Keep those wings out of revolving doors." Angel grinned happily, his gargoyle face wrinkling into impossible contortions. "They are a nuisance." Newly garbed and equipped, the men followed Teucrete from the building. Stopping to stuff Pao Chung's order into some feminine idea of a safety-vault, not too safe in the company of lecherous males, Teucrete conducted her charges through a lovely formal garden that functioned by concealed hydroponics, and on into another built up area. But this was no cubicle of stone or steel or plastic. It was a roofless structure of glass. Vertical panels of glass ran off beyond sight. Panels of all colors, all degrees of transparency. Some were as lucid as crystal, some barely translucent, and more bent or mirrored to distort, reflect or refract light. All were tinted, some weakly, others violently stained. The place was stridently illuminated by concealed radi-floods. It was a solid mass of rainbow effects, a forest of crystal mirrors and shafts and flickering, glowing prisms. One entered by a kind of airlock, or more accurately, a lightlock. There was no change in atmospheric pressure, but the density and beating force of sheer luminosity increased by squares and cubes as the travellers strode through linked cubes of glass. They entered the light maze. Dazzling splendors beat upon them. Vision was overwhelmed by visible vibrations. They drowned in light. IV "Don't touch anything," warned Teucrete. "Exact alignment is important."