There were both men and women among those waiting, most of them in what Earth would call informal dress (a pair of simple trousers and knitted shirt in gray or brown, often topped off with a heavy furred cape or swathing capelike coat); and most of them were much more warmly dressed than the driver of his cab. Apparently there was not such a shortage of heat-holding fabrics as he had assumed.
As he reached the fourth elevator, the door opened and the group was sucked into its recesses. Herl joined it and the doors closed. "Express to the sixth floor: face the rear of the car please," said the tinny voice from an overhead speaker. Twenty people stood glumly motionless as the car glided up with the faintest of vibrations but with a heavy pressure against the soles of Captain Hofner's feet.
A door opened at the rear of the elevator chamber and the crowd pushed out and spread wide in the large lobby ahead. Herl Hofner shifted his case to his left hand and looked around for some clue to the whereabouts of Crawford's office. That worthy might have the whole floor, but he must have his particular sanctum at some particular place.
Most of the lobby was filled by comfortable looking upholstered couches and chairs, and these in turn were filled by what Herl judged to be a couple of hundred people talking, reading pamphlets, or glancing preoccupiedly through pages of forms that looked like the ones he'd filled out earlier. In a chair near him, Herl saw an old man gazing blankly ahead and approached him.
"I wonder if you would be so good as to tell me where I could find Commissioner Crawford," he requested hopefully.
"What say?" the man blinked and turned his gaze on the red uniform jacket at about the level of Herl's floating ribs.
"Where would I find Commissioner Crawford?"
"Down that way somewhere, I suppose." The man's voice was toneless as he indicated direction with one elbow.
Yes, almost at the corner of the room was a broad paneled door on which the stencilled name Mr. Commissioner A. G. Crawford became legible as Herl approached it. He knocked briskly just below the letters; and the door swung slowly inward to admit him.
Inside sat a receptionist at a switchboard. She looked up at Herl's entrance; and he could see that she was a homely brunette with dull skin and a shapeless figure. Her glance at his trim scarlet uniform was approving and she said, "You're Captain Hofman from Galactic Information, aren't you?"