Page:Keeban (IA keeban00balm).pdf/284

 Where the glass met the frame, and about the single, glass door, the joints were caulked and sealed, making the place air-tight and gas-tight, undoubtedly. There was a way of ventilating it without using the windows, I saw; for cords communicated with ceiling traps. The traps were open now; the blackness above was the darkness of the sky. One set of cords hung inside the room, another hung just outside the glass.

I guessed that, when Stamby-Temke had the building, the chemists who worked in the glass room used the inner set when they wished to clear the air of their cabinet; the outer cords must be for emergencies, in case the chemists in the outer laboratory saw the experimenters in the cabinet overcome; then the rescuers could open the ceiling before going into the glass room.

The fact that the traps now were up suggested that the cabinet recently had been used. For whom? I wondered. I was sure of the purpose of the cabinet. Here was the place of punishment and of discipline.

Keeban strode into the glass room and pulled the cords. The ceiling closed and he came out. His normals stood about him, grinning. They took on an additional detachment of manner