Kesley thought of the shining towers and compared them with the squat tenements of Chicago and Buenos Aires. "It's an incredible city."
With sudden bitterness Kesley said: "Why does the Antarctican Duke keep that barrier up? Why doesn't he invite the world down here to see what he has? Why must ninety percent of mankind live in squalor?"
"They want it that way," Daveen pointed out.
He fingered his instrument gently; a mocking note crept forth. Kesley remained silent in thought for a moment.
Then he nodded. "You're right. The Dukes see to it that nothing changes, that no progress is ever made. The Twelve Empires don't want any part of Antarctica, and Antarctica doesn't want any part of them."
Antarctica's Duke, for one reason or another, had raised an impregnable wall around his fantastic paradise. The Twelve Dukes of the war-blasted world had erected their own barriers. But who was to say those barriers could not be thrown down again? There was a _fourteenth_ Immortal. And he was free to act.
Ten minutes ago such thoughts would have been nothing more than bravado. Now, Kesley knew, he held power in his hands.
"I'm going to leave. I'm going to go looking for the Duke. Is there anything else you want to tell me, before I go?"
A calm smile spread over the tired face. "Not now," Daveen said.
Another panel in the wall opened as if at Kesley's request, and without hesitating he stepped through. He found himself in a small rectangular enclosure whose luminescent walls were inlaid with tiles of a glowing green plastic.
It glided downward with no illusion of descent, drifted through a thousand-foot shaft and came to a silent halt. A wall opened. Kesley saw that he was at ground level, in the vestibule of the great building.
He saw the people: tanned, happy-faced people who did not seem to notice him. They wore smooth, free-flowing tunics of what seemed like an uncreasable fabric; it put the finest robes of the courtiers of the Americas to shame.
As he paused in the vestibule, not quite knowing which way to turn, he heard a familiar humming sound, turned, and saw a mechanical man near him. It might have been a twin of the ones he had seen at Wiener.
"Duke's residence is reached by travelling on slidewalk eleven blocks north to crosspoint, transferring to eastbound slidewalk and continuing until destination. You will be aware when reaching Duke's residence."