"'Bye, sir."
Garth led the way into one of the kiosks. Lamps were flashed on. A spiral ramp led steeply down.
In an undertone Brown said, "I told Morgan Commander Benson sent me to find Paula Trent—that she was lost in the city. So we're safe till—"
"We're safe till we leave the underground passage," Garth said. "After that, twenty miles across open ground. Has Benson got planes?"
"Portable ones, yeah."
"Then we'd better do that twenty miles at night."
The ramp ended. Before them was a gigantic room where their tiny lamps were lost. Here and there enigmatic shadows loomed, the dead, fantastic machines of the Ancients that had once made Chahnn alive and powerful.
Garth went directly to an opening in the wall, Brown and his ten men following, and entered a short tunnel. At one spot he paused, ran his finger over a panel of smooth metal, and pressed. A black oval opened silently.
"Here's the way. They won't follow us beyond this point."