It was a city of clean, strong lines, without elaborate ornamentation to mar a perfection which its builders must have kept constantly before their minds. There was no visible areas of new construction or areas where the buildings seemed to be crumbling. No wrecking instruments at work, or skeleton structures black against the sunrise. Not the slightest sign anywhere of demolition or repair. It was as if the city had been built to endure for centuries, with every stone in place, a monument to the creative genius of a race that had somehow found a means to create a vision of splendor which time or the elements could not mar or efface. It was a breathtakingly beautiful city and yet, in some strange way, it seemed to be enveloped in an aura of cruelty and wickedness. There was a lewdness about some of its contours--a lewdness that could be physically sensed. It stirred the imagination in a strange way, as a woman utterly abandoned, lost to all shame, may cease to be a capricious wanton, given to light-hearted amours and become so coldly lascivious that she repels the most passionate of men. And suddenly, as Loring stared, he saw the woman-shape. He saw that the city, its entire circumference, its central mass, was shaped like a recumbent female with great wanton knees and flame-tipped breasts. Janice saw it too, and retreated from the window with a gasp, her face and throat darkened by a quickly spreading flush. Loring stared for an instant longer and then turned and drew her to him, holding her tightly for a moment and saying nothing at all. There were no words that could have eased the shock of what they both had seen, and silence was better, Loring felt. After a moment her breathing steadied and the flush vanished from her cheeks. "What are we going to do, David?" she asked. "Just stay here and let the builders of that city visit us? Kill us perhaps, or insist that we accompany them on a sight-seeing tour? I don't think we'd like what we'd see." "I don't think so either," Loring said. "And I don't think we're staying if that window isn't locked and opens outward. Or inward, for that matter. I'm going to find out right now. If necessary, we'll conduct our own sight-seeing tour. If we can get out fast we may be able to hide somewhere before they realize we've had the quickness of mind to outsmart them." "Not quickness of mind alone, David. Courage enough to act quickly and descend those stairs." "You saw the stairs?" Janice nodded. "Yes, I saw them. A flight of stone steps leading downward, starting just below the window and leading straight down. I was going to push on the window, to see if it would move. You do it, David. Hurry. We've no time to lose." "All right," Loring said. He returned to the window and pressed firmly on the pane. For a moment the pane held and then, as he increased the pressure, it swung slowly outward. Janice ran to him with an exultant cry.