"Not 37X!" exclaimed one of the older men. "Why, that's twenty miles up, near the Frozen Gate!"
"Yes!" Mich'l smiled with tight lips. "You men willing?"
There was an instantaneous shout of approval. Curiously enough, seizure of the Gate by force had not occurred to any of this law-abiding, well-disciplined group. But Mollon's lawless seizure of the Government had removed all inhibitions of that sort. Seizure of the Gate would bring at one stroke the realization of the dream that the technies had tried for generations to win by political means. Surely, when the Gate was open, and they could see the glorious, half-mythical Sun for themselves, the people would consent to the Exodus!
For the technies, even in the bitterness of defeat, were not anti-social. They hoped and worked for the devitalized races of Subterranea, for the betterment of their condition, more than for their own. The technies were the fittest; they had demonstrated their ability to survive unchanged under adverse condition. They would be least helped by the Exodus. Yet they had worked for it all their lives, as had their fathers before them, out of unselfish love for humanity. There have always been such men. Through the murk of history we see their lives as small, steady lights, infrequent and lonely. With the opening of the Frozen Gate suddenly a possibility, the technies forgot their exasperation with the stupid mob.
he Gate is guarded," said an elderly man dubiously.
"A small guard," Gobet Hanlon remarked quickly, "and probably dazed with merclite. Nothing to fear."
"Stay away from the Gate," Mich'l instructed. "Give no cause for alarm. If an emergency arises while I'm gone, see Gobet."
"Don't go alone, Mich'l," Gobet begged. "A few of us with ray-needles can storm the detention cells. We can clean out Lane's warren."