Their motion ceased; in all their thousands they turned.

Over the City's top and out into the oval valley they poured their torrents of light; flooding it, deluging it even as they had this pit that was the City's heart.

Feeding, I knew, those other Metal Hordes without.
And as though in answer, sweeping down upon us through the circles of open sky, a clamor poured.
"If we'd but known!" Drake's voice came to me, thin and unreal through the tumult.

"It's what Ventnor meant! If we had got down there when they were so weak--if we could have handled the Keeper--we could have smashed that plate that works the Cones! We could have killed them!" "There are other Cones," I cried back to him.
"No," he shook his head.

"This is the master machine.