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Rh wall to his left; he watched his shuttle speeding with tireless movement from side to side. There were a hundred looms in the room; they stood in rows, with a scant four feet between the rows. The shuttle of each, flashing along its groove from side to side, snapped sharply into place at the end of each oscillation. “Clack-clack-clack,” they went. The whir of the wheels and the smooth slide of moving parts united in a silken fabric of sound; above this, rang the clacking chorus, multitudinous, incessant, like the gossiping tongues of many women. 9009 hated it.

At either end of the long, high room, an iron-barred cage hung from the ceiling. In each cage stood a blue-clad guard, holding his rifle loosely, as though waiting to use it. Two other guards walked the floor of the room. 9009 feared these. They went about quietly, armed only with small canes. They reported infractions of rules and misbehaviour; upon them depended the standing of every convict. One of them was Jennings, the sallow-faced guard with the white-gray eyes. Occasionally, feeling a presence, 9009 glanced Rh