Of course! Twelve sterile Dukes, blessed with eternal life but cursed with the inability to reproduce--what would they do, how would they react when they knew that one line of Immortals, somewhere in Earth, bred true? That they were faced with the prospect of a gathering race of Immortals threatening their powers as the years rolled on? "You see?" Daveen asked. "I understand now," Kesley said. "They _had_ to try to kill me. I was a menace--an Immortal who wasn't a Duke, and whose children could breed true!" He stared at his hands as if they were covered with suddenly alien flesh. "I wasn't a Duke, was I?" He asked cautiously. Anything was possible now. "No," Daveen told him. "You were never a Duke." Kesley smiled, thinking now of the centuries stretching endlessly ahead. "A king without a kingdom, then. Well, there's plenty of time for me to find one. But you still haven't told me who I am, Daveen." XIV There was silence in the bare room for almost a minute. Idly, Daveen strummed his instrument; Kesley tensed, thinking another layer of his mind-block was to be stripped back, but Daveen was merely striking random notes. "Well?" Kesley asked. "The information you want is not mine to give." "All right," Kesley said. He rose and stared down at the blind man. "I won't ask again." He had asked too many people too many questions, without result. Now he would save his breath. As he stood there, a door opened silently out of the wall. "What's that for?" he demanded. Then, realizing the blind Daveen was unaware of the occurrence, he added: "A door just opened in the wall." "Doors are for leaving rooms," Daveen observed. "I'll take the hint." Kesley hesitantly stepped through--and saw Antarctica. He was standing on a short, jutting balcony that hung a few feet out over the distant street below. Sudden vertigo gripped him as he looked down, down. It was five hundred--no, a thousand--feet to the ground! Tiny dots of color moved rapidly far below on unceasing slide-ramps. Down the center of the street, graceful cars of blue and gold and red, topped with plastic bubbles, raced along. Buildings rose on each side of the street--towering edifices, mighty vaults of steel and plastic. Kesley sucked in his breath sharply. The sky overhead was warm and bright, and just below the clouds, far in the distance, a curious, tingling, purplish light illuminated the sky. _That's the barrier_, Kesley realized. The intangible wall of force that separated Antarctica from the rest of the world. It was a mind-numbing sight, this fantastic city. It was like no city he had ever seen in the Empires; it stretched to the horizon, tower after massive tower. A graceful network of airy flexibridges hung like gossamer in the air, linking building to building far above street level. And the city was shining. That was the only way to describe it. The sleek sides of the huge buildings gleamed brightly in the warm daylight.