The Diktor tossed a bag of coins to Teoman, gestured the man out. He snapped an order and went striding back and forth across the room as the officer hurried out. The officer came back with two red-clad attendants who wheeled a squat engine, bulbs and gears locked inside a transparent jacket, before them. High on the gleaming metal top of the machine stood a vox-phone. The Diktor bent and put his lips to the vox-phone. He said irritably, "Subject: the Car Carolan Sea and adjacent territories. Query: What, if anything, of scientific value is reputedly found in that region?" There was a faint hum of the gears and pistons. A soft, gentle voice replied, "The flaming Land and the Desert of Dead White Stones border the Car Carolan Sea to the west. To the east is the continent of Karr Major. To the south the ice floes that are barren. To the north, the polar regions. Beyond the Flaming Land is an inland sea fed underground by waters from the Car Carolan. Beyond that sea lies the desert. It is an uninhabited land. There is nothing of scientific import there aside from the volcanic region of the Flaming Land." The machine clicked and died. The Diktor sighed. He would have to go and see Stasor. He did not want to do that because he had a feeling that the members of the Elder Race did not approve of him and his methods. * * * * * Even far out at sea Angus felt the heat coming toward him in surging waves. Mists, formed from water heated to the boiling point, rose like a white pall to shelter the Flaming Lands from his eyes. But here and there, through a breeze-made rift, he could see huge tongues of fire, red and sullen, rising from the ground. Angus drove the globe-ship into the white fog. Gigantic bubbles broke under it, flung mists and steam up over the ship. Inside the glober the heat was fierce. Angus was clammy with the sweat running down his cheeks and ribs. It was sapping his energies. When the controls started to blur in his eyes he knew he had enough. His fingers touched the warm control lever and threw it forward. He fled miles from the mist and slowed to a stop, riding the ocean's swell. He muttered, "I'm through. Finished. I can't go over and I can't go under ... or can I? Didn't Plisket say something about that? Wait ... wait ... sure! He said this thing will submerge." Angus got up and crossed the room. There was a small literatum inset in the metal wall. He ran his eyes over titles, reached up and brought down a thick book on geophysiology. He bent, consulting pages on subterranean oceanology. His finger pointed out a paragraph. "From the Car Carolan Sea an underground river feeds the inland sea that lies between the Flaming Lands and the Desert of Dead White Stones."