A row of lights lit up
over one of them. Zip strode boldly across the floor to the elevator
that had been indicated, and the others followed without a word. When
he was within twenty feet of the door, it opened. After the men entered
the compartment and laid down their burdens, the door closed.
On a control panel, one light gleamed and Zip pressed it. When he had
done so, another light went on. He pressed that one. After he had
pressed six lights, no more came on, and the elevator began to descend.
After about a minute, the movement stopped and a door behind the men
slid open, opposite to that through which they had entered. The men
turned and inhaled sharply.
"Oh my! Oh my!" exclaimed Zip, but no one heard him.
In front of the men was a power plant of impossibly immense size, in
dusky darkness. There were low murmurs as of engines pulsing far away
or of winds passing through trees, but they were quiet sounds. The
ceiling was out of view, lost in blackness above them. A seamless iron
floor, perfectly level, stretched out before the men as far as they
could see. The left wall was beyond their vision; the right wall was
about thirty yards away. Lights were located sparsely throughout the
facility.
Gargantuan tubes, gleaming silver in the lights and ribbed like a torso
of a dragon, snaked through a heavy latticework of girders.
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