A unicorn pranced out from between the pianos. His coat was white and sleek, his mane and tail shone like coal, his eyes were blue as sapphires. The long spiralling horn was pale gold, glistening bright. The Governor tried to approach him, to stroke the soft nose, to clutch the heavy mane. The unicorn stamped a nervous hoof and circled away, always barely out of reach. Lampley followed him down the long aisle between the pianos.
The unicorn looked back, his nostrils wide. Lampley put out his hand, almost touched him. The animal snorted, broke into a trot, a gallop. Its hooves pounded the hard floor: tata-rumpp, tata-rumpp, t-rump t-rump. The Governor ran too, shouting, calling. His lungs were sawed by jagged breaths, his heart burst through his ribs and left only a helpless, pounding pain behind. He wanted to stop, to give up, to faint; he kept on pursuing.
The unicorn paused, wary. He stamped a hoof, tossed his mane, pointed his horn. Lampley, gasping, was hardly able to totter forward. He took a step, two, leaned against the nearest piano. Plink, plink, plink, plink, plink plunk. The unicorn suddenly ran his horn into one of the instruments, withdrawing it to leave a splintered hole in the wood. A man came out of the shadows with a sledgehammer over his shoulder. He was a dwarf, naked to the waist, with writhing biceps, wearing a grease-matted brimless cap over thick curly hair. The growth on his chest curled also, an obscene felt. He swung the hammer down on the piano, smashing in the top, caving in one of the legs.
"What are you doing?" demanded Lampley before he realized he didn't care what the man was doing. "How do you get out of here?" he amended.
The dwarf went on methodically wrecking the piano. The unicorn disappeared, the sound of its hooves growing fainter and fainter. Lampley approached the dwarf, ready to clutch his shoulder, to extort a way out. He was afraid. Afraid of the blunt, lethal hammer, afraid of the strength and rage which had reduced the piano to junk. Afraid of the answer to his question. Afraid there might be no answer.
The dwarf slung the maul back on his shoulder and walked away. The Governor wept. There was no strength in his arms or legs. He fell down and crawled weakly forward, sobbing and retching, the sour taste of vomit in his mouth. Plink plink, plink plink, plink plunk. Destruction of the offending piano made not the slightest difference in the cacophony.
The weight of all the floors above him, the overwhelmingly massive structure of steel and stone reaching to the surface, bowed him down in lonely, strangling terror. What mind, what mathematical faculty could estimate the thousands, the hundreds of thousands, the millions of crushing tons overhead, malign, implacable, waiting? He closed his eyes, moved his arms and legs convulsively. It was more than he could bear.
He was at the elevator again. If he could pry the door open perhaps he could climb the cables or brace himself between the rails on which the counter-weights slid and inch his way upward. Or fall to destruction. He knew he could never get the door open. He was condemned to stay amid the pianos. He sobbed hopelessly.