"Not without fighting
our way in. They're under the palace citadel, a hundred feet below
ground. They're spatially co-existent with the heavy water barriers
around one of our company's plutonium piles on the First Level, and
below surface on any unoccupied time-line I know of, so we can't
transpose in to them. This palace is really a walled city inside a
city. Here, I'll show you."
Going around the desk, he sat down and, after looking in the
index-screen, punched a combination on the keyboard. A picture,
projected from the microfilm-bank, appeared on the view-screen. It was
an air-view of the city of Zurb--taken, the high priest explained, by
infrared light from an airboat over the city at night. It showed a
city of an entirely pre-mechanical civilization, with narrow streets,
lined on either side by low one and two story buildings. Although
there would be considerable snow in winter, the roofs were usually
flat, probably massive stone slabs supported by pillars within. Even
in the poorer sections, this was true except for the very meanest
houses and out-buildings, which were thatched. Here and there, some
huge pile of masonry would rear itself above its lower neighbors, and,
where the streets were wider, occasional groups of large buildings
would be surrounded by battlemented walls. Stranor Sleth indicated one
of the larger of these.
"Here's the palace," he said.
Pages:
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36