A table, running the full length of that map, stood below it, bearing at spaced intervals machines which clattered now and then, or flashed small signal lights. And seated between each two of such machines, with their backs toward him, their attention all for the devices they tended, were others wearing the gray robes and caps.

A little apart was a second table, or outsized desk, with three more of the Kolder. The center one of this trio wore a metal cap on his head from which wires and spider-thread cables ran to a board behind him. His face was without expression, his eyes were closed. However, he was not asleep for, from time to time, his fingers moved with swift flicks of the tips across a panel of buttons and levers set in the surface before him.

Simon’s impression of being in a central control of some concentrated effort grew with the seconds he was left to view the scene undisturbed. The words which were barked at him this time did not come from the air, but from the man on the left of that capped figure. He gazed at Simon, his flat face with its overspread of upper features, displaying first impatience and then the growing realization that Simon was not one of his own kind. Simon sprang. He could not hope to reach that end table, but one of those who tended the machines before the map was in his range. And he brought his hand edge down in a blow which might have cracked backbone, but instead rendered the victim unconscious. Holding the limp body as a shield, Simon backed to the wall of the other doorway, hoping to win to that exit.

To his amazement the man who had first marked his arrival there made no move to obstruct him, physically. He merely repeated slowly and deliberately in the language of the continental natives:

“You will return to your unit. You will report to your unit control.”

As Simon continued his crabwise advance upon the door, one of the men who had been a neighbor of his captive returned an astounded face from Tregarth to the men at the end table, then back to Simon. The rest of his fellows looked up from their machines with the same surprise as their officer got to his feet. It was clear they had expected only instant and complete obedience from Simon.

“You will return to your unit! At once!”

Simon laughed. And the result of his response was startling indeed. The Kolder, with the exception of the capped man who took no notice of anything, were all on their feet. Those of the center table still looked to their two superiors at the end of the room as if awaiting orders. And Simon thought that if he had shrieked in agony they would not have been so amazed — his reaction to their orders had completely baffled them.