I gazed at the men on duty. "Is nobody armed? What if the Newcomers get in here?"
The officer shook his head. "You know that weapons would be our own destruction. Electro-automatics, disintegrators, ray-sabers—they all give off flame. And a touch of flame in any one of these glare-fields would explode the whole chamber, and the solid soil around it, into atoms."
I glanced toward the far end. "Up yonder I see no glares."
"Of course not. Beyond and above is the point that coincides with the narrow approach left for the Newcomers." The officer studied me narrowly. "If you are from the Council, why are you ignorant of all these things?"
It would be a difficult question to answer plausibly, but I was spared the task. Someone hurried from a little televiso shack and saluted the officer.
"Orders, sir. Important. We're to withdraw immediately. The Newcomers are advancing, and the forces above will take over operation."
"Of course," the officer said, and turned from me to shout commands. Men began to hurry away past us, toward the elevator, eager to quit the post of danger.
"Come, Doriza," I said softly, and she followed me along a wall. "Here's one of those explosion mechanisms. If we can bring it between us—"
She did something to turn it off, and we trundled it along on its wheels. I pointed to the spot above which the entry-point was said to be, and toward it we went, unchallenged and unnoticed. We reached the earthy far wall, and it was steep, but with the point of my ray-saber I dug pits for hands and toes. Up I scrambled to the ceiling. There I paused, hanging like a bat.
"Disintegrator," I called down to her.