breath of thirty million pairs of lungs.
Then, as Connor alighted, there was a whir, and he glanced up to see a fan blower dissolve into whirling invisibility, drawing up the fetid accumulation of air. A faint coolness wafted along the tunnel–like street. For perhaps half a minute the fan hummed, then was stilled. The colossal city breathed, in thirty–second gasps!
They moved into the building, to a temperature almost chilly after the furnace heat outside. Connor heard the hiss of a cooling system, recognized the sibilance since he had heard it from a similar system in Evanie's cottage. They followed Jan to an elevator, one of a bank of fully forty, and identical to one of the automatic lifts in an ancient apartment building.
Jan pressed a button, and the cage shot into swift and silent motion. It seemed a long time before it clicked to a halt at the seventy–fourth floor. The doors swung noiselessly aside and they emerged into a carpeted hall, following Jan to a door halfway down the corridor. A faint murmur of voices within ceased as Jan pressed a bell–push.
In the moment of silence a faint, bluish light outlined the faces of Jan and Evanie; Connor standing a bit to the side, was beyond it.
"Looking us over on a vision screen," whispered Jan, and instantly the door opened. Connor heard voices. "Evanie Sair and Jan Orm! At last!"
Connor followed them into a small chamber, and was a little taken aback by the hush that greeted his appearance. He faced the group of leaders in the room, half a dozen men and an equal number of women, all garbed in Urban dress, and all frozen in immobile surprise.
"This is Tom Connor," Jan Orm said quickly. "He suggested the rifles."
"Well!" drawled a golden–haired girl, relaxing. "He looks like a cool Immortal. Lord! I thought we were in for it!"
"You'd manage, Ena," said a striking dark–haired beauty, laughing disdainfully.
"Don't mind Maris." The blonde smiled at Connor. "She's been told she looks like the Princess; hence the air of hauteur." She paused. "And what do you think of Urbs?"
"Crowded," Connor said, and grinned.
"Crowded! You should see it on a business day."
"It's their weekly holiday," explained Evanie. "Sunday. We chose it purposely. There'll be fewer guards in the Palace seeing room."
For the first time Connor realized that Sundays passed unobserved in the peaceful life of Ormon.
Jan was surveying the Urban costumes in grim disapproval.
"Let's get to business," he said shortly.
There was a chorus of, "Hush!"
The girl Maris added, "You know there's a scanner in every room in Urbs, Jan. We can be seen from the Palace, and heard too!"
She nodded toward one of the lightbrackets on the wall. After a moment of close inspection Connor distinguished the tiny crystal "eye."
"Why not cover it?" he asked in a low voice.
"That would bring a Palace officer in five minutes," responded the blonde Ena. "A blank on the screen sticks out like the Alpha Building."
She summoned the group close about her, slipping a casual arm through Connor's. In an almost inaudible whisper she began to detail the progress of the plans, replying to Jan's queries about the distribution of weapons and where they now were, to Evanie's question about the appointed time, to inquiries from each of the others.
Evanie's report of the Messenger caused some apprehension.
"Do you think he knows?" asked Ena. "He must, unless it was some stray that passed near you."
"Suppose he does," countered Evanie. "He can't know when. We're ready, aren't we? Why not strike today—now—at once?"
There was a chorus of whispered protest.
"We oughtn't to risk everything on a sudden decision —it's too reckless!"
Ena pressed Connor's arm and whispered, "What do you think?"
He caught an angry glance from Evanie. She resented the blond girl's obvious attention.
"Evanie's right," he murmured. "The only chance this half–baked revolution has is surprise. Lose that and you've lost everything."
And such, after more whispered discussion, was the decision. The blow was to be struck at one o'clock, just two hours away. The leaders departed to pass the instructions to their subordinate leaders, until only Connor and Evanie remained. Evan Jan Orm had gone to warn the men of Ormon.
Evanie seemed about to speak to Connor, but suddenly turned her back on him.
"What's the matter, Evanie?" he said softly.
He was unprepared for the violence with which she swung around, her brown eyes blazing.
"Matter!" she snapped. "You dare ask! With the feel of that canary–headed Ena's fingers still warm on your arm!"
"But Evanie!" he protested. "I did nothing."
"You let her!"
"But—"
"You let her!"
Further protest was prevented by the return of the patrician Maris. Evanie dropped into a sulky silence, not broken until Jan Orm appeared.
It was a solemn group that emerged on the ground level and turned their steps in the direction of the twin–towered Palace. Evanie had apparently forgotten her grievance in the importance of the impending moment, but all were silent and thoughtful.
Not even Connor had eyes for Palace Avenue, and the tumult and turmoil of that great street boiled about him unnoticed. Through the girders above, the traffic of the second and third tiers sent rumbling thunder, but he never glanced up, trudging abstractedly beside Evanie.
A hundred feet from the street's end they paused. Through the tunnel–like opening where Palace Avenue divided to circle the broad grounds of the Palace, Connor gazed at a vista of green lawn surmounted by the flight of white steps that led to the Arch where the enormous diorite statue of Holland, the Father of Knowledge, sat peering with narrowed eyes into an ancient volume.
"Two minutes," said Jan with a nervous glance around. "We'd better move forward."
They reached the open. The grounds, surrounded by the incredible wall of mountainous buildings, glowed green as a lake in the sun, and the full vastness of the Palace burst upon Connor's eyes, towering into the heavens like a twin–peaked mountain. For a moment he gazed, awe–struck, then glanced back into the cave of the ground level, waiting for the hour to strike.
It came, booming out of the Palace tower. One o'clock! Instantly the ground level was a teeming mass of humanity, swarming out of the buildings in a torrent. Sun–light glanced, flashing from rifle barrels; shouts sounded in a wild chorus. Swiftly the Ormon men gathered around Evanie, whose brilliant costume of green and crimson formed a rallying point like a flag.
The mob became an army, each group falling into formation about its leader. Men ran shouting into the streets on the broad avenue that circled the grounds, on the second and third tiers. Instantly a traffic jam began to spread to epic proportions. And then, between the vehicles, the mass of humanity flowed across the street toward the Palace.
From other streets to right and left, other crowds were pouring. The black–haired Maris was striding bare–limbed and lithe before her forces. White, frightened faces stared from a thousand stalled cars.
Then the heterogeneous mob was sweeping up the slope of grass, a surging mass converging from every side. The Palace was surrounded, at the mercy of the mob. And then—the whole frenzied panorama froze suddenly into immobility.
From a dozen doors, and down the wide white steps came men—Urban men, with glittering metallic cuirasses and bare brown limbs. They moved deliberately, in the manner of trained troops. Quickly they formed an inner circle about the Palace, an opposing line to the menacing thousands without.