Croomes had not said a word for a long time. Her grim face had indicated, though, that she was struggling terribly to accept the reality of this place. Nothing here had been what she expected; there had been no welcoming choir of angels, no glory-blazing God on a throne with her mother standing at His right hand to greet her.
Now she said, “Those two could be his parents.”
There were many things to investigate in the rooms, but Burton hurried them on out.
They had gone about two hundred feet when they came to a bay, the first they’d seen on the right-hand wall. Burton got out from the chair and looked along the shaft. Its bottom was level with the floor; the top wasn’t more than fifty feet up.
Wisps of fog rushed across it, apparently drawn from the outside and through vents in the wall opposite.
He withdrew his head.
“That might lead to the dome on the outside, the one which only Piscator could enter.”
The Japanese had been intelligent and brave. He’d probably done as Burton had, tested the invisible field in the shaft, figured out that it would hold him, and then descended. But how could he have activated the field if he didn’t know the codeword or whatever it was that operated it?
However, this shaft was different from the others. It was very short, and there was only one way to go if you were at the top. Sensors might determine that the field was activated if someone came in from the top. The sensors could detect that there was only one person and that he wouldn’t be standing in the field unless he wanted to go down. To go up would require a codeword of some sort. Or maybe it didn’t, the bottom part of the field would act like the top, only in the reverse direction.
Where was Piscator?
To test his theory, Burton stepped into the shaft. After three seconds, he was lifted slowly upward. At the top of the shaft, he stepped out into a short metal corridor. It curved near its end and undoubtedly opened into the corridor in the dome.
Fog billowed around the corner, but the lights were strong enough to pierce it.
He walked into the corridor and at once felt a very slight resistance. Its strength increased as he advanced struggling.
When he was panting and unable to go even an inch farther, he turned back. His way was unimpeded to the shaft. When he returned to the lower level, he gave a short report.
“The field works both ways,” he concluded.
The Moor said, “According to the Parseval report, there was only one entrance. Yet.. .there must be an opening, a door of some kind, for the aircraft to come in. There were none on top of the tower. I think, however, that they just weren’t visible. Also, there must be ethical fields in the entrances for the aircraft. Otherwise, anybody could go in that way. Including X. Surely he must have gone out on legitimate business from time to time in an aerial vessel.”
“You forget about the hypothetical wathan distorter,” Burton said. “That would’ve enabled X to get through the dome entrance, too.”
“Yes. I know that. What I’m getting at is that if we could find the hangar for the aircraft, and then find out how to operate them, we could leave here at any time we pleased.”
“They’d better be easier and simpler to fly than an airplane,” Frigate said.
“No doubt they are.”
“Say, I’ve got an idea,” Frigate said, grinning. “Piscator was a Sufi, and he had no trouble entering. You’re a Sufi and a highly developed ethicalist. Why don’t you go out and try to get back in through the dome?”
The Moor grinned back at him.
“You’d like to see if I really am as advanced as I should be, wouldn’t you? And what happens if I can’t get out? Or, if I do, can’t get back in? No, Peter. It would be a waste of time and an exhibition of pride on my part. You know that, yet you urge me to do it. You are teasing me. As a disciple, you sometimes lack the proper reverent attitude toward your master.”