One of them was squatting over an immense heap of coiled tape which was growing almost as fast as he could scoop it up and feed it into the chittering maw of some glossy data-eater in one wall.
Another was repairing a mass of tangled circuits in an exposed ganglion behind a section of wall.
Still another of the mechanical men stood at some distance away, holding a segmented tube to the mouth of Kesley's horse. The horse had its jointed scaly lips pressed tight against the tube, and was eating or drinking with evident contentment.
Air-conditioners hummed gently in the background, keeping the atmosphere pure and dustless. From the floor came the throbbing of some mighty engines far below. Kesley wondered just how deep in the ground the City penetrated.
All around, computers chattered and whistled. Kesley felt his astonishment growing with each moment. And beneath the astonishment, there was a mounting resentment at the Ducal philosophy that had blanked such achievements as this from the world.
Machines have destroyed civilization, people said. But had they? No; not the machines. It was man's use of the machines; the machines themselves were impartial, as disinterested in the currents of human affairs as the moon and the stars.
Yet the Dukes had risen to power on a program of throttled technological development. Fleetingly, the thought went through Kesley's mind that the Dukes had made a mistake. If only—
He stopped, feeling a shiver of pain. Once again he had touched some reverberating rawness in the deep layers of his mind; once again, a forbidden thought.
In sudden inspiration he turned toward a grid set in the wall near him.
"Can I get information from you?" he asked.