"Be careful, Lucifer," she said quietly.
The long corridor was frighteningly deserted. With so many doors opening off it, the odds seemed overwhelming that someone would step out one of them at any moment and challenge his right to be there.
Lucifer's plastic boots scraped on the metallic composition floor.
A subdued tinkle of children's voices drew him to a door some thirty steps down the corridor. The door appeared to be of a glass-like material, but it was opaqued. He pushed against it, and it moved. He drew a long breath, then inched the door open.
A tall, bronzed women of Huth's racial characteristics was grouping a dozen or so youngsters into an activity pattern. The children were all around five or six years old. Their fair skin and bone structure indicated they were offspring of Earth parents.
The woman blindfolded one of the youngsters, a square-shouldered, blond little fellow. The she tossed a ball to one of the other boys, and gave a short command in her own language.
The children scattered about the large room. The boy with the ball ran and stood against the window, which was blurred from the driving rain.
After chanting what appeared to be a number count, the blindfolded boy began to move around the room. As he approached one child after another, he would hesitate while still three or four steps away, shake his head and move on to someone else.
Finally, when still some ten feet from the window, he swerved abruptly toward the boy holding the ball. He ran directly to him, grabbed him by the arm, then fumbled for the ball and clutched it triumphantly.
The other children broke into an excited babble, and everyone seemed to be clamoring for the next chance to be blindfolded. The woman looked disconsolately at the rain-streaked window, and began to blindfold another child.