He followed that for a short distance, and then
turned off into a dimly lighted, disused area.
Before long, I began noticing stacks of tallow-wax, put up in the
regular outside sausage skins but without the Co-op markings. They
just had the names of hunter-ships--_Javelin_, _Bulldog_, _Helldiver_,
_Slasher_, and so on.
"What's that stuff doing in here?" I asked. "It's a long way from the
docks, and a long way from the spaceport."
"Oh, just temporary storage," Tom said. "It hasn't been checked in
with the Co-op yet."
That wasn't any answer--or maybe it was. I let it go at that. Then we
came to an open space about fifty feet square. There was a jeep, with
a 7-mm machine gun mounted on it, and half a dozen men in boat-clothes
were playing cards at a table made out of empty ammunition boxes. I
noticed they were all wearing pistols, and when a couple of them saw
us, they got up and grabbed rifles. Tom let down and got out of the
jeep, going over and talking with them for a few minutes. What he had
to tell them didn't seem to bring any noticeable amount of sunlight
into their lives. After a while he came back, climbed in at the
controls, and lifted the jeep again.
4
MAIN CITY LEVEL
The ceiling on Main City Level is two hundred feet high; in order to
permit free circulation of air and avoid traffic jams, nothing is
built higher than a hundred and fifty feet except the square
buildings, two hundred yards apart, which rest on foundations on the
Bottom Level and extend up to support the roof.
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