Fighting down a flutter of panic, Walther turned off his light and leaned against the elevator door to organize his thoughts.
He was sure the others had left on time to make shipment schedules at the Uniport landing. They might have delayed long enough to make a cursory search for him, but his safety was no part of their commitment. They had successfully raided the vaults, which was all they had contracted to do. Before morning, most of them undoubtedly would have embarked on inter-planetary cruises.
Walther's first decision was to try the other elevators on the off-chance that one had been left in operating gear.
None had.
Next, he set off to look for a stair well, fire ladder or other method of exit. It took him three hours to cover the entire vault and its corridors. No doubt of it, the elevators were the only means of entering and leaving.
It was now one o'clock. In eight hours the upper level doors would open to the Digesters. No particular effort had been made to camouflage the gaps in the stacks. His one chance was to reach the street level before anyone noticed the missing books. Meanwhile, he could do nothing except spend the night as comfortably as possible. He spread his coat on the marble floor behind the squat statue of a Malayan goddess.
Surprisingly, he did doze off toward morning. He awoke shortly after eight o'clock, and began to punch the elevator button every five minutes. Finally, at three minutes to nine, a faint hum responded within the shaft. He retreated hastily into the nearest corridor, and waited another ten minutes before bringing the elevator down to his level. Then he entered it, pressed the street-level control and shot upward.
He lit a cigarette, and was prepared to step out nonchalantly as soon as the door opened.
His exit was nonchalant enough, but the servo-robot guard in front of the elevator held out its tabulator slot and said.