«Narlena,» she answered. Then with a smile she said, «You must have already been moving about in Pura. Tell me, how is it now?»

Blade could not help hesitating. How could she not know what had happened to the city above her head? And if she did not know, how could he tell her that the city lay in ruins and that marauding bands of armed barbarians stalked through those ruins, preying on those of her people bold enough to venture out on to the surface?

Fortunately, he did not have to face the problem at once. Her mobile lips curved upward in a warm smile. «Never mind that for now. Come into my vault with me while I take my tests.» Blade could not help observing that her manner had become noticeably friendlier once she had completed her inspection of his nude body. He decided against taking up his weapons; so far she had accepted him as one of her own people. But displaying his array of marauder weapons might make her change her mind. He followed her into the vault and helped her close the door behind them.

Moments after entering it, Blade knew that his hopes of finding an advanced civilization had been realized. Or at least an advanced technology, he corrected himself; the two were not necessarily the same.

The interior of the vault was about the same size as a large studio apartment. But the walls from the soft, fur-covered floor up to the low, blue-enameled ceiling were almost completely covered with a maze of tubing and cylindrical reservoirs and with squarish metal boxes in a variety of colors at irregular intervals. Some of the boxes had conspicuous dials and lights on their sides. In one corner stood something large. It looked like a mummy case and was mounted on a gimbaled pedestal to give it movement in three directions. There were controls set into the cover, and both halves were lined with maroon plush contoured into a shape very much like the girl's body.

Squarely in the center of the chamber stood an upright cylindrical chamber, apparently of glass, with a vertical section on one side that swung open on almost invisible hinges.