There was silence in the bare room for almost a minute. Idly, Daveen
strummed his instrument; Kesley tensed, thinking another layer of his
mind-block was to be stripped back, but Daveen was merely striking
random notes.
"Well?" Kesley asked.
"The information you want is not mine to give."
"All right," Kesley said. He rose and stared down at the blind man. "I
won't ask again."
He had asked too many people too many questions, without result. Now he
would save his breath.
As he stood there, a door opened silently out of the wall.
"What's that for?" he demanded. Then, realizing the blind Daveen was
unaware of the occurrence, he added: "A door just opened in the wall."
"Doors are for leaving rooms," Daveen observed.
"I'll take the hint." Kesley hesitantly stepped through--and saw
Antarctica.
He was standing on a short, jutting balcony that hung a few feet out
over the distant street below. Sudden vertigo gripped him as he looked
down, down. It was five hundred--no, a thousand--feet to the ground!
Tiny dots of color moved rapidly far below on unceasing slide-ramps.
Down the center of the street, graceful cars of blue and gold and red,
topped with plastic bubbles, raced along. Buildings rose on each side
of the street--towering edifices, mighty vaults of steel and plastic.
Kesley sucked in his breath sharply.
The sky overhead was warm and bright, and just below the clouds, far in
the distance, a curious, tingling, purplish light illuminated the sky.
_That's the barrier_, Kesley realized. The intangible wall of force
that separated Antarctica from the rest of the world.
It was a mind-numbing sight, this fantastic city. It was like no city
he had ever seen in the Empires; it stretched to the horizon, tower
after massive tower. A graceful network of airy flexibridges hung like
gossamer in the air, linking building to building far above street
level.
And the city was shining.
That was the only way to describe it. The sleek sides of the huge
buildings gleamed brightly in the warm daylight.
As Kesley looked out, it seemed to him as if so many thousand-foot
mirrors blinked back at him.
He stepped back inside. Daveen had not moved.
"You've never seen Antarctica, have you?" Kesley asked.