Adventures in the Far Future & Tales of Outer Space — page 216: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

little better when | detected the hint of a smile at the comers of Kell-IIl’s thin, sensitive-looking lips. “Allow us to escort you to the Primary Enclosure, gentlemen. We wish to see to your comfort, following which, if it is your pleasure, we shall be more than happy to Summon a quorum of the Teachers to assist you in launching the preliminary stages of your research. If you will follow our vehicle, gentlemen.” They bowed again, and waited until we had clambered aboard our track before turning and re-entering their own. Kruger fumbled around for the ignition switch, maused the gears and made a mess of getting us started up. “| don’t believe it,” was all | could get out of him for a full two minutes. “The University of California must have a new expansion program going,” | said. “And you don’t get your money back.” “| don’t believe it.” “That’s been our trouble all along, back home,” | said. “We've got all the capacity anybody needs to believe anything. We just use it on the wrong stuff. Give this thing a boot, doc. We don’t want them to think we’re slow... The magnificent structure which Kell-Ill had called the Primary Enclosure was perhaps five full miles in diameter and little less than one at its maximum height. Inside it there was a city that only poets could have designed; men of practical science, perhaps never. Art and life had never been so exquisitely blended on Earth. And about it all there was an aura of the perfect peace that the city itself bespoke—and a quietness. It was the quietude, | think, that kept Kruger and myself from taking deeper breaths. People thronged the deep green of the generous parks, the flaring sweep of the overhead ramps that twined fantastically between this towering spire and the CORniclooo SS (SO)