"I think I can."

"Then come," and I pushed open the panel.

The elevator cage was waiting, and its operation not hard to study out. Quickly we sped down and stepped forth into another great chamber, bright and echoing. A sentry confronted us.

"Your pass?" he demanded.

I chose to bluster it out. "What kind of idling goes on here?" I snapped at him. "I'm from the Council, to see if the report is true—that you haven't made all ready for the ambush."

"But we have," he protested.

"You give me arguments, you insolent upstart? Where's your commander?" I turned to face an officer that hurried up. "This sentry needs to be disciplined, taught respect for his superiors," I scolded. "What have you to say, sir, about the laxity and slowness of work here?"

"But we're ready and more than ready," the officer assured me. "Look, sir," and he pointed. "This whole cavern is dug out to completion, the overhead roof thinned for the explosion. See the play of glares upon it."

I looked, and nodded as if in sour agreement. The earth floor was a maze of cables and coils, and here and there, strategically placed, were little wheeled stands with mechanisms atop. From each of these beat upward a cone of glaring golden light against the rough ceiling. It blinded me to look at them.

"The glares," Doriza murmured.

I gazed at the men on duty. "Is nobody armed? What if the Newcomers get in here?"

The officer shook his head. "You know that weapons would be our own destruction. Electro-automatics, disintegrators, ray-sabers—they all give off flame. And a touch of flame in any one of these glare-fields would explode the whole chamber, and the solid soil around it, into atoms."

I glanced toward the far end. "Up yonder I see no glares."

"Of course not. Beyond and above is the point that coincides with the narrow approach left for the Newcomers." The officer studied me narrowly. "If you are from the Council, why are you ignorant of all these things?"

It would be a difficult question to answer plausibly, but I was spared the task. Someone hurried from a little televiso shack and saluted the officer.

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