Beneath the masks, Danton could see concern, incredulous concern. Maybe they had thought they had set up an impervious regime. And maybe they actually had. But there was doubt here. Just enough of a doubt to play upon. One thing he knew, and that was that there was resentment out there beyond the Walls, whatever the Walls were, and those songs, hopeless as they were, had been songs of revolt against oppression. The germ was out there.... "You have a choice," the woman said. "Tell us everything you know. That, or suffer the kind of pain we cannot describe to you, a kind you will find out for yourself." He could imagine. The Oligarchs had been efficient at everything. That had been their god--efficiency, mastery of the machines, the maintenance forever of the master-elite over the rabble. Like an amoeba, the social forces of the world had split, the old values solidifying, the new values pulling away, coming back again, overrunning, defeating. But the Oligarchs had fled and here they had developed their particular systems to some final state. Whatever they had waiting for him, to open his mind, it would be efficient. She said, "You entered our Walls voluntarily. Why?" She said it as though it were totally inconceivable that anyone beyond the Walls should seek to enter voluntarily. Maybe it was inconceivable. "Curiosity," Danton said. He managed to smile at each of them in turn. "There have been so many rumors growing old, becoming legends and myths. I came in to find out for myself." "You do not expect to escape?" Danton shrugged. "I don't care one way or the other. I had hoped to remain here." He waited. He thought. Finally he added, "I had hoped to become one of you." "What?" one of the men said in a whisper. The man on Rhone's right said, "A curious type. Obviously he has insight. One might almost think--" The woman said, "We can speculate later, if we have to, Weisser. Right now we are interested in facts. Facts!" She kept looking into Danton's eyes. Her own eyes had a curious green quality. She was beautiful, of course, physically. No one had ever denied the physical beauty of the Oligarchs. Hereditary physical beauty was important to them. They developed it by selective breeding and--no one had figured out by what other means. There was the indication of an edge to the woman's voice now. "Three of our ships vanished. Do you know anything about those ships, soldier?" Danton smiled. "Yes," he said, and paused for perhaps five seconds. "We destroyed them." The silence then was longer than five seconds. It was very long. It lengthened until it was painfully heavy. The woman's voice was a whisper. "How could the rabble do that? It isn't true, of course. It couldn't be true."