Other thoughts agreed. Ketrik grinned there in the dark. He knew now, that somewhere beyond him must be the lair of Dar Vaajo's Entity, and these men were deathly afraid of it. Finally another thought stabbed through.
"Very well. There's no retreat for him now anyway. We'll wait here, but one of you hurry to the palace and bring Dar Vaajo!"
Ketrik acted quickly then. He found the lights, saw that he was in a small metal-walled room. On the opposite side was another door, and near it was a tall case containing half a dozen protective suits.
He hurriedly donned one. It wasn't hard to guess what they were for. The suit itself was of light mesh-beryllium, topped by a heavy crystyte helmet. Again he brought his weapon into play, destroyed the other five suits. Let Vaajo come! He would hardly dare enter this den without protective gear!
But even within the suit Ketrik didn't feel quite safe. He still remembered the power of the thing he had felt the previous night. His stomach turned over in a frightened yawn as he stepped through the opposite door.
VIII
He was on a wide balcony. Near at hand was a tele-vise, a control-studded panel, and other complicated machinery. Overhead, seeming so near he could almost touch it, the great laboratory dome stretched out and away in its vast curve. While below ... was emptiness. Now for the first time he realized the gigantic proportions of this building. A hundred feet below he saw bare floor. Probably twice that distance away, straight across from him, he could make out the opposite wall. There was nothing more, nothing in all that maw of space.
Peering at the walls, he saw strange instruments protruding. Short and tubular, literally thousands of them reached from the floor to the height of this balcony, stretching away across the walls as far as he could see. Ketrik thought he knew what they were—but he had to be sure.
He looked at the controls all about him. One huge panel contained thousands of studs. He depressed one. From the far away opposite wall a ray of white light needled out and slightly downward. He swept his hand across more studs, and other beams lanced out from the four walls—dozens, then hundreds. Ketrik was satisfied. Here, he knew were the controlling rays which Vaajo had spoken of. He shut the rays off, and looked further about him.