I banged on the ceiling of the coach and the driver answered me. "Your honor?" he said.

"Drive me around to the south side of the park, to Engineer Deemer's residence," I said. "Do you know the location?"

"Very good, sir," he said.

Pierce Deemer had been the Master's head engineer throughout the years of the construction of the Well-Built City. Some said he was every bit as brilliant as Below. He was an old man now, but still very active in working on municipal projects for the City. I knew he had children and that his children had children, and I was counting on the fact that he cared for them.

Engineer Deemer was a wiry, severe-looking man with short white hair. He allowed me into his house but was not pleased by my presence. We went into his study, a small comfortable room with a drawing board and books lining the walls. He was a powerful figure in the City, but even his influence, I knew, could not supersede my authority to detain and read him or any member of his family. I did not play coy but went straight to the heart of the matter.

"I need some information," I told him as I sat down in one of the plush chairs attending his desk.

"Everyone needs information," he said snidely.

I took out a handful of appointment cards and threw them on the desk. "Give one of these to each of your grandchildren," I told him. "I hope for their sakes they are all excellent physiognomical specimens. Have you heard about what the Master has planned for the park in a few days?" I asked.

He stared at the cards and then eventually nodded. "Are you threatening me, Cley?" he asked.

"Their heads will pop like grapes," I said. "All of those towheaded little minchs of yours, exploding for the glory of the realm. It will certainly be a spectacle," I said.

"The Master will hear of this," he said.

"Very well," I said and got up to leave.

"Wait," he called just as I was going out the door.

I turned and walked back to the desk. "The crystal sphere that houses the false paradise, how was it constructed?" I asked.

"You know of it?" he asked. "It's supposed to be a secret."

I pulled out another appointment card and threw it on his desk. "Have your wife come by my office also," I said.

"It was not constructed," he told me. "Crystal grows. The Master grew it in an elliptical mold that was made of a substance of his invention that eventually, over time, turns to pure oxygen. The solution was poured into the mold, the crystal grew, and the mold then disintegrated. A very rapid process," he said.

"Are there entrances or exits?" I asked.

He shook his head.

"Can it be cracked?" I asked.

"We tested it with flamethrowers, bullets, hand grenades. They didn't make a scratch. But why do you need to know?" he asked.

"It's a secret," I said.

"Has this been sanctioned by the Master?" he asked.

"No," I said. "If he hears of my visit to you, you can plan on your family line being snipped short."

"You're one of us, aren't you?" he said, and then held up his hand and made the sign of the O.

I nodded and gave him an O in return.

He smiled and showed me to the door. "If I can think of anything, I'll let you know," he said.

As I rode away from the park, I felt uneasy about having exposed my position to Deemer. I could only hope that he really was part of what appeared to be a City-wide conspiracy. ' These unknown allies might be my last and only salvation at the end," I thought. But things were rarely what they seemed in the realm. On my way back to my apartment, I continued to search the streets for the only person I could definitively trust—a gear-work giant with a pinprick of paradise in his head.

"An egg waiting to hatch," was how the Traveler had described the sphere. In my mind, I hit that egg with a hammer, kicked it with my boot, rode over it with a coach wheel, and sat on it like a hen, but nothing could crack it.

Finally, I gave in to the comfort of the beauty for the second time that evening. Corporal Matters of the day watch appeared in my bedroom, flailing away at a crystal egg with the monkey-headed cane. When he reached a state of near exhaustion, he rolled the dice on the end of my bed and announced, "Zero."

"The conspiracy is real," I told myself as I stepped out onto the street the next morning and, scanning the horizon, saw that there was no longer a top to the Top of the City. The long column that was the enclosed elevator that led to the domed restaurant had now a jagged end. The dome was absolutely gone and there was smoke issuing from the open shaft. I stopped the first person who passed me and asked what had happened.

"Explosion last night," the man said. "There and over at the Ministry of Security—a whole wing was taken out."

"Who is responsible?" I asked.

"They are saying that there are evil forces at work in the Weil-Built City," he said.

I thanked him for the information and hurried on to the cafe where I again bought a Gazette. explosions rock city was the headline. The story gave information on the loss of life, which was considerable in both instances, and made note that the Master was offering a hundred-thousand-below reward for information leading to the capture of the terrorists.

Things were heating up. The people of the O apparently were not waiting for me to move. I supposed that they knew about the upcoming executions in Memorial Park in a few days and were reacting violently to the idea of them, or perhaps this was in retaliation for the attack on the patrons of the bar the other night.

I had barely gotten into my first cup of shudder when a coach pulled up at the curb in front of the cafe. The driver got down and came walking over to me.

* There is an emergency meeting of the ministers this morning, your honor, and the Master requests your presence," he said.

"Very well then," I said. I paid for the shudder and took my cup and napkin and accompanied him to the coach.

The meeting was to be held in the Master's office at the Ministry of Benevolent Power. As we rode across town, we had to pass the Ministry of Security. I witnessed the aftermath of the destructive blast. The entire west wing of the building was now no more than a pile of rubble. The pink coral had crumbled like stale bread. Arms and legs and pipes and shards of window-pane poked out of the mess. Soldiers in riot armor patrolled the cordoned-off area. "These people aren't fooling around," I thought to myself.

We turned past what was left of the building and headed uptown toward the Master's office. As we went along, I finished off my drink and brought the napkin up to wipe my mouth. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw what I thought appeared to be writing on it. I brought it directly into my line of vision and discovered that there was a note penned on one side. Cley, it said, it is easier to break an egg from inside out than from outside in. If you want to find out more, come this evening at eight to the Earth Worm at the western side of town. P.D.

I crumpled the napkin up and remembered to throw it in the trash can outside the ministry before entering. As I rode up in the elevator, I wondered if the message had really been from Pierce Deemer or if it was a ruse to flush me out. To make the appointment would be very chancy, especially in light of the recent explosions, but it was an opportunity I couldn't let pass.

As I strode down the hallway to the office, I was disappointed to see that it had been the head of Arden that had succumbed to the Master's strange affliction. He stood there with his mirror, posing the same as ever, only now his body ended at the shoulders. The sight of it brought back to me a memory of Mantakis and his wife, and the last thing I thought before entering the Master's office was the sight of them clutching each other in a pool of blood in the lobby of the Hotel de Skree.