That was all. Allen had only time to murmur assent. The ship landed. With Rhool half guarding, half leading him, he was taken along the lower street. The workers stood grim, impassive, until they recognized Rhool. Then like machines they stood stiff, with a hand touching the metal insignia of their helmets until Rhool had passed. Even the children stood rigid, saluting. Little bodies drilled to efficiency; impassive childish faces. But in their eyes still there was childhood--excited, wondering childhood. Rhool and Allen passed the guards at the entrance to Tollgamo's home. In the dim blue-green glow of a metal room Allen was told by Rhool to stand, and Tollgamo would come. Then Rhool was gone. Unseen eyes were watching Allen. He sensed it; and stood stiffly against one wall, awaiting the coming of the Master. It was a strange, square apartment. Blue-lit, so that its richly tiled floor and ceiling glistened like polished steel. The furniture was square, glistening in the light-sheen. At one end of the room a huge polished table with a single big chair at its end, held a variety of small apparatus, a bank of levers and little buttons as though for signalling commands. And there was a neat stack of what seemed to be charts and mathematical data. A murmur outside the room brought Allen back from his contemplation of his surroundings. Men's voices; a guttural command. Then Rhool came in, walking with stiff, pseudo mechanical tread. On his heavy face was a grinning leer. Behind him there was a Gort man and woman. Allen recognized them; both had been on the spaceship and both were blamed by Rhool for the escape of Nereid and me. They came now marching stiffly erect. Their faces were impassive, but terror was in their eyes and in the tense set of their lips. * * * * * And then at last came Tollgamo. Involuntarily Allen gasped at sight of him. He was a giant figure of a man, six feet six, at least. Unlike the square, robot appearance of his menials, his garments of grey metal-fabric were soft, and clinging. A flowing tunic fell from his powerfully broad shoulders to below his waist, with a wide, glistening metal belt; trousers which sheathed his powerful, shapely legs; shoes with padded soles so that he moved soundlessly. He was bareheaded, and his black hair, closely clipped, came to a peak at his forehead. His skin was the familiar Venus grey, but there was a saffron cast to it. His high-bridged nose was hawk-like, his chin protruding, but square--the firm jaw completely characteristic of determination and power.