sed it
over, but to his amazement it was understood at once.

The little black pad passed from hand to hand and an animated
discussion took place. One rather hard-faced man was the most animated
of all. The bearded old man demurred. The hard-faced man insisted.
Tommy could see that his pilot's expression was becoming uneasy. But
then a compromise seemed to be arrived at. The bearded man spoke a
single, ceremonial phrase and the twelve men rose. They moved toward
various doors and one by one left, until the room was empty.

But the pilot looked relieved. He grinned cheerfully at Tommy and led
the way back to the two-wheeled vehicle. The two men with Tommy's
weapons vanished. And again there was a swift, cyclonelike passage
along empty ways with the throbbing of machinery audible everywhere.
Into the base of a second building, up endless stairs, past
innumerable doors. It seemed to Tommy that he heard voices behind some
of them, and they were women's voices.

At a private, triple knock a door opened wide, and the pilot led the
way into a room, closed and locked the door behind him, and called. A
woman's voice cried out in astonishment. Through an inner arch a woman
came running eagerly. Her face went blank at sight of Tommy and
Evelyn, and her hand flew to a tiny golden object at her waist. Then,
at the pilot's chuckle, she flushed vividly.

* * * * *

Hours later, Tommy and Evelyn were able to talk it over. They were
alone then, and could look out an oval window upon the Golden City all
about them. It was dark, but saffron-red panels glowed in building
walls all along the thoroughfares, and tiny glowing dots in the
soaring spires of gold told of people within other dwellings like
this.

"As I see it," said Tommy restlessly, "the Council--and it must have
been that in the big room to-day--put us in our friend's hands to
learn the language. He's been working with me four hours, drawing
pictures, and I've been writing down words I've learned. I must have
several hundred of them. But we do our best talking with pictures. And
Evelyn, this city's in a bad fix."

Evelyn said irrelevantly: "Her name is Ahnya, Tommy, and she's a dear.
We got along beautifully. I'll bet I found out things you don't even
guess at."

"You probably have," admitted Tommy, frowning. "Check up on this: our
friend's name is Aten, and he's an air-pilot and also has something to
do with growing foodstuffs in some s