he
clouds if there had been any clouds.

Broom backed away from the window and let the curtain close. He'd had
all of that he could take for right now. The inside of the building, his
immediate surroundings, looked almost homey after seeing that monstrous,
endless city outside.

He skirted the table with its still-humming machine and walked toward
the door that led to the other room. A picture hanging on a nearby wall
caught his eye, and he stopped. It was a portrait of a man in
unfamiliar, outlandish clothing, but Broom had seen odder clothing in
his travels. But the thing that had stopped him was the amazing reality
of the picture. It was almost as if there were a mirror there,
reflecting the face of a man who stood invisibly before it.

It wasn't, of course; it was only a painting. But the lifelike, somber
eyes of the man were focused directly on him. Broom decided he didn't
like the effect at all, and hurried into the next room.

There were several rows of the bulky tables in here, each with its own
chair. Broom's footsteps sounded loud in the room, the echoes rebounding
from the walls. He stopped and looked down. This floor wasn't covered
with the soft carpeting; it had a square, mosaic pattern, as though it
might be composed of tile of some kind. And yet, though it was harder
than the carpet it had a kind of queer resiliency of its own.

The room itself was larger than the one he had just quitted, and not as
well lit. For the first time, he thought of the possibility that there
might be someone else here besides himself. He looked around, wishing
that he had a weapon of some kind. Even a knife would have made him feel
better.

But there had been no chance of that, of course. Prisoners of war are
hardly allowed to carry weapons with them, so none had been available.

He wondered what sort of men lived in this fantastic city. So far, he
had seen no one. The streets below had been filled with moving vehicles
of some kind, but it had been difficult to tell whether there had been
anyone walking down there from this height.

Contarini had said that it would be ... how had he said it? "Like
sleeping for hundreds of years and waking up in a strange world."

Well, it was that, all right.

Did anyone know he was here? He had the uneasy feeling that hidden,
unseen eyes were watching his every move, and yet he could detect
nothing. There was no sound except the faint humming from the device in
the room behind him,