a local district of about two hundred miles
radius.]

Larry crossed his room to gaze through north and eastward windows. He
saw now that the grounds of this three-story building of Tina's palace
were surrounded by a ten-foot metal wall, along whose top were wires
suggesting that it was electrified for defense. The garden lay just
beneath Larry's north window. Through the tree branches the garden
paths, beds of flowers and the fountains were visible. One-story
palace wings partially enclosed the garden space, and outside was the
electrified wall. The Time-traveling cage stood faintly shining in the
dimness of the garden under the spreading foliage.

* * * * *

To the east, beyond the palace wall, there was an open garden of
verdure crossed by a roadway. The nearest building was five hundred
feet away. There was a small, barred gate in the palace walls beyond
it. The road led to this other building--a squat, single-storied metal
structure. This was a Government laboratory, operated by and in charge
of Robots. It was almost square: two or three hundred feet in length
and no more than thirty feet high, with a flat roof in the center of
which was perched a little metal conning tower surmounted by a sending
aerial. As Larry stood there, the broadcast magnified voice of a Robot
droned out over the quiet city:

"Trinight plus two hours. All is well."

Strange mechanical voice with a formula half ancient, half
super-modern!

It was in this metal laboratory, Larry knew, that the other
Time-traveling cage was located. And beneath it was the entrance to
the great caverns where the Robots worked attending inert machinery to
carry on the industry of this region. The night was very silent, but
now Larry was conscious of a faraway throb--a humming, throbbing
vibration from under the ground: the blended hum of a myriad muffled
noises. Work was going on down there; manifold mechanical activities.
All was mechanical: while the humans who had devised the mechanisms
slept under the trees in the moonlight of the surface city.

* * * * *

Tina had gone with Tugh down into those caverns, to locate Migul, to
find Mary Atwood and me.... The oppression, the sense of being a
stranger alone here in this world, grew upon Larry. He left the
windows and began pacing the room. Tina should soon return. Or had
disaster come upon us all?...

Larry's thoughts were frightening. If Ti