diameter, possibly a thousand feet high at the dome.
Here were the entrances to some of the principal Government warrens.
Here also centered the streets, like radiating spokes of a wheel, on
which many of the officials lived. Here the emanation bulbs were more
frequent than in the galleries, so that the light was almost glaring.
Guards of soldier-police, the stolid, well-fed, specialized class
produced by centuries of a static civilization, were everywhere. Not
in the memory of their grandparents had they done any fighting, but in
their short, brightly colored tunics, flaring trousers and little
kepis they looked very smart. Their only weapon was a small tube
capable of projecting a lethal light-ray.

Mich'l led his party to the audience hall. It was only a few hundred
feet in diameter. At one end was the speaker's rostrum. Senator Mane
was already there. He was tall, purposeful, but withal tired and
wistful looking. His graying hair was cut at the nape of his neck,
sweeping back from his swelling temples in a manner really suggestive
of a mane. His large, luminous eyes lit up.

"Is it nearly time?"

"Yes, Senator," Mich'l said. "The nation will soon assemble."

"You have met Senator Mollon?"

"I have had the pleasure," Mich'l acknowledged with polite irony,
"since Senator Mollon gives me practically all my orders."

Mollon acknowledged the tribute with a quick smile, without rising
from his chair. He, too, was different from the average Subterranean
in that he was forceful and aggressive, like Senator Mane. He was
still youngish looking, of powerful, blocky build. His dark hair was
carefully parted in the middle and brushed down sleekly. The Twentieth
Century had known his prototype, the successful, powerful, utterly
unscrupulous politician; and in a different sphere, that type of
extra-Governmental ruler which the ancients called "gangster." It was
casually discussed in Subterranea that certain of the state
soldier-police were responsible for the mysterious assassinations that
had so conveniently removed most of the effective resistance to
Mollon's progress in the Senate. The once potent body had not held a
session in ten years: didn't dare to, a cynical and indifferent public
said. And a strange reluctance on the part of qualified men to accept
the Presidential nomination had left that office unfilled for the past
three years. Mollon, as party dictator, performed the duties of
President provisionally.