THE LIBRARY


"I thought you'd never get back," complained the doctor crossly, when
the three entered. They had been gone just half an hour.

Next moment he was studying their faces, and at once he demanded the
most important fact. They told him, and before they had finished he was
half-way into another suit. He was all eagerness; but somehow the three
were very glad to be inside the cube again, and firmly insisted upon
moving to another spot before making further explorations.

Within a minute or two the cube was hovering opposite the upper floor of
the building the three had entered; and with only a foot of space
separating the window of the sky-car and the dust-covered wall, the men
from the earth inspected the interior at considerable length. They
flashed a search-light all about the place, and concluded that it was
the receiving-room, where the raw iron billets were brought via the
elevator, and from there slid to the floor below. At one end, in exactly
the same location as the desk Smith had destroyed, stood another, with a
low and remarkably broad chair beside it.

So far as could be seen, there were neither doors, window-panes, nor
shutters through the structure. "To get all the light and air they
could," guessed the doctor. "Perhaps that's why the buildings are all
triangular; most wall surface in proportion to floor area, that way."

A few hundred feet higher they began to look for prominent buildings.
Only in forgetful moments did either of them scan the landscape for
signs of life; they knew now that there could be none.