A power-driven wheelchair sped up to them. Sitting in it was a fat man of middle age, with pendulous jowls and a totally bald head. His expression was a sardonic scowl.
"You have the plans?" he asked the girl.
"Sweetheart here has them."
"I don't know what you're talking about," the young man said.
"He knows, all right," the girl said. "He pretends to be innocent, but that is merely his training. He has them under a sticking plaster on the small of his back."
"Remove your coat and shirt," commanded the man in the wheelchair.
At that moment the floor shuddered under their feet, a gong began to clang insistently, and the giant machinery, which had been silent, throbbed into life.
The man in the wheelchair whirled and was off, shouting commands to men who materialized high on the walls in cylindrical turrets which the visitor could only think of as battle stations.
"What is this place?" he asked.
He got no answer. Instead the girl grabbed his arm and pulled him off to the edge of the gigantic metal room. An opening appeared in the wall and she pushed him through it into a room beyond. The entranceway snapped shut behind them and when he looked he could see no door. The room also was windowless.