The clerk tore several pages out of the book and constructed an airplane. It flew silently over their heads, dropping leaflets a quarter the size of postage-stamps. The Governor tried to control his nervous shrinking. "It wasn't as if she were a silly girl. I mean, it was a considered decision on her part—nothing frivolous or vain...."
His voice trailed off. The clerk tore out another page and made a cannon. He shot a wing off the plane with it; the machine whirled down lopsidedly and crashed on the pulpit. "If that's the way you want it, that's the way you want it. Let's go."
"Where to?"
"Ah," said the clerk; "If we only knew." He removed the cocked hat and black robe and dropped them in a wastebasket. He pressed a button on the pulpit which immediately swung aside to reveal a manhole. A ladder rose out of the depths in short jerks. As it neared the ceiling a trapdoor fell open. The ladder glided through and stopped. "You first," said the clerk.
Lampley climbed the ladder, feeling he might lose his hold on the rungs at any step. When he was almost to the top he looked down. The clerk had disappeared. Carpenters were laying a wooden floor, erecting partitions. Porters removed the swing and the pulpit. Wiring, air-conditioning, telephones, interoffice communication-systems, were installed rapidly. One of the workers took up an ax and began chopping at the ladder.
Lampley climbed through the floor. He was in a court with squat walls, and gateways wider at the bottom than the top, bearing winged suns. He passed between rows of statues, animal-headed gods, men and women wearing conventionalized wigs and beards in stylized poses. The pale light gave the reds, greens and blues which predominated, a chalky, muffled quality; it threw the looped crosses molded on the frieze into shadowed relief.
The air was dank with the penetrating, pervasive dampness of oozing stone. Lampley was oppressed by thoughts of decay and destruction, of the knowledge without the sensation of pain. He longed for the warmth of the sun outside the hotel or the climate of the island under the earth. He shuddered away from the hidden corners, suggestive of toads and snakes, small animals decomposing and maggoty. This place should have had some measure of sanctity, induced some feelings of reverence or at least contemplation. He was aware only of the sodden air.
He walked moodily from the dusky precincts into the shocking light of a busy office. Girls in tight pink nylon bathing suits, their hair dyed royal blue, wearing blue nail polish, blue lipstick and red eye shadow, sat at transparent plastic desks, inserting thin rectangles of Swiss cheese into tabulating machines. Each desk had a silver champagne ice bucket in which rested a telephone. Beside the machines a row of feather dusters in graduated sizes were arranged in neat holders. Lampley saw pretzels were being used as paper clips.
"Pardon me," he said. "Is this the accounting department?"