Hilton, just barely, accepted the suit, too, without showing surprise.
The creche, it turned out, while not in the city of Omlu itself, was not too far out to reach easily by car.
En route, Laro said—stiffly? Tentatively? Hilton could not fit an adverb to the tone—"Master, have you then decided to destroy me? That is of course your right."
"Not this time, at least." Laro drew an entirely human breath of relief and Hilton went on: "I don't want to destroy you at all, and won't, unless I have to. But, some way or other, my silicon-fluoride friend, you are either going to learn how to cooperate or you won't last much longer."
"But, Master, that is exactly ..."
"Oh, hell! Do we have to go over that again?" At the blaze of frustrated fury in Hilton's mind Laro flinched away. "If you can't talk sense keep still."
IN half an hour the car stopped in front of a small building which looked something like a subway kiosk—except for the door, which, built of steel-reinforced lead, swung on a piano hinge having a pin a good eight inches in diameter. Laro opened that door. They went in. As the tremendously massive portal clanged shut, lights flashed on.
Hilton glanced at his tell-tales, one inside, one outside, his suit. Both showed zero.
Down twenty steps, another door. Twenty more; another. And a fourth. Hilton's inside meter still read zero. The outside one was beginning to climb.