I assented eagerly, and made to rise, but he pushed me back. "It is not
needful," he said, and reaching down to the foot of the metal platform
on which I lay, he touched a concealed button. At once, the platform
rose gently from its supports until it swung in the air four feet above
the floor. When my new-found friend laid his hand on its edge, it moved
gently through the air under the impetus of a slight push.
He saw my astonishment, and explained, "The metal is clorium, the same
material we once used for our air-boats. It is weightless, under the
influence of certain forces." Then, as an afterthought, he added, "My
name is Kethra."
Pushing my platform easily through the air before him, he was moving
toward the door of the room when I stopped him with a gesture. "Can
I look from the window there a moment?" I asked, indicating the high
openings. By way of answer, he stepped over to the window in question,
his hand on my platform's edge bringing me there also. I raised myself,
gazed eagerly out.
I saw at once that I must be near the top of the great cone-shaped
building we had been making for when we crashed. Below, and all around,
the white buildings extended to the horizons, looking like thousands
of huge geometry-models cast down indiscriminately, cones and spheres
and cubes. High above them as I was, yet I could discern swift movement
in the streets, crowds of pedestrians surging to and fro, flashing
vehicles of strange design, that followed the broad thoroughfares,
rising in the air here and there to pass over each other. Glancing away
down the long, slanting side of the cone near whose summit I stood, I
saw at its base other great crowds, who massed and swirled aimlessly
around the building. I turned to Kethra.
"And this is Kom?" I said.