Having no choice, he entered on his hands and knees. IV Dewforth wandered in a labyrinth of control panels which reached almost to the ceiling, but did not entirely shut out the light. This light was like skimmed milk diffused in shadow. He reasoned that it came from windows, but when he tried to remember whether the control cab had windows he could not be sure. He had no visual image of windows seen from the outside, but he had supposed that such an edifice would hardly be blind. Somewhere beyond this maze of control panels, he also reasoned, there must be an area like the bridge of an enormous ship where the clamor of the bells, buzzers, klaxons and whistles and the silent warnings and importunings of dials, gauges, colored lights, ticker-tapes which spewed from metal mouths, the palsied styles which scribbled on creeping scrolls, were somehow collated and made meaningful, where the yammering loudspeakers could be answered, and where the operators could look out and down and see what they were doing. Where were the operators? The noise was deafening. Unlike the noise of machinery in a factory it was not homogeneous. Each sound was intended to attract attention and to evoke a certain response, but what response and from whom? Long levers projecting from the steel deck wagged back and forth spastically like the legs of monstrous insects struggling on their backs. Several times Dewforth was temporarily blinded by an explosion of blue light as a fuse blew or something short-circuited among the rows of knife-switches and rheostats on the panels. One would never really get used to the sporadic sound or to the lights. There was no knowable pattern about them--about what they did or said. When he closed his eyes and tried to compose himself the words _Out of Control_ flashed red against the back of his eyelids, but he told himself that this was foolish. How was one to adjudge a situation to be Out of Control when one did not know what constituted control, over what, or by whom? Furthermore, he rebuked himself, if the panels--never mind how many or how forbidding--with their lights, bells, buzzers, switches, relays, dials, gauges, styles, tapes, pointers, rheostats and buttons had any meaning, and in fact if the Tower itself had any meaning at all, that meaning was _Control_. How arrogant it had been of him to imagine, even briefly, that because he--a green intruder in that high place--had not immediately comprehended what it was all about, the situation must be out of control. _Absurd!_ * * * * *