Serpenta seeks me out, and asks me sweetly what place we shall visit first.
“O, no matter.”
“A library?”
“Very well.”
She connects our chairs securely, as did Robet, and presses them to motion, without saying as did Robet, “look out.”
We are moving—how, how? Her “look out,” had she said it, would have helped one less than Robet’s. For this is worse—so much more worse.
Not so exhilarating, quite the opposite. I am losing my breath in a faint, so utterly unprepared am I, for we are moving straight out into space. I look sideways to see Serpenta calm. I look in front, if to see a track, none there. Nothing above or below to hold, not even a wire. Still we are steady and aim to another tower top that is rapidly nearing. Now we stop on it. I get down and walk around my chair to find its wizard action. No track, did I say? There is a track—good rail track behind. It pops into my head it is after the method devised some years ago for a railroad to lay its track as it went, but must have land to lay it on. This carries and steadies its supplements—bridge-like.
We descend the elevator into an elegant room of many windows and drapery, seat ourselves beside one, high and wide. The scene outside is exquisite. Some fur-clad people are on the ice around a fire cooking. A ship in the distance is ice locked.
But there is no ice in this neighborhood.
“How do you like the picture?” asked Serpenta eagerly.