Lamont felt a momentary, distinctly unpleasant sensation in his scalp and along the bridge of his nose, which passed almost as quickly as it had arrived. Then, suddenly, the sphere was surrounded by an ephemeral, glittering cloud.
“I cann’a see you anymore,'' said Arthur’s voice in Lamont’s helmet.
“We’re still here,” Answered Ed. “The door, or whatever it is, closed.”
With a visible tug, the chief technician pulled himself away from the copper-etched wall. Almost faster than his eye could follow, Lamont saw the surface of the wall in front of them slide away to reveal the landing bay again. There was no sound that he could detect through his suit.
Ed stood up straight against the wall again, and once again the opening in front of them snapped closed. “Okay,” He said calmly. “It only closes if we’re all strapped in.”
“Look!” Exclaimed Rico. The security specialist had his neck craned upward. Lamont looked up toward the ceiling, from which he could see the mirror-like sphere descending slowly, as if suspended by an invisible line. He watched, rather mesmerized, as their fish-eyed reflections passed over the surface of the sphere until it came to a stop roughly level with their knees. He estimated the sphere to be slightly larger in diameter than a human head.
“What the dickens is that thing?” Rosemary asked.
Rico, who possessed the longest arms in the party, grunted and leaned forward slightly, passing his gloved hand through the space between the sphere and the ceiling. “It is floating,” He concluded.
“All right,” Said Spratt. “Now what?”
As if in answer to his question, there was a subtle but evident ripple in the air around the sphere. Lamont felt a momentary, distinctly unpleasant sensation in his scalp and along the bridge of his nose, which passed almost as quickly as it had arrived. Then, suddenly, the sphere was surrounded by an ephemeral, glittering cloud. Within moments, the cloud began to coalesce into a definite shape, translucent but clearly defined. The shape was that of a copper-colored cylinder, highlighted by bands of other colors, with flickering symbols of some kind orbiting around it.
Ed, whom Lamont had never before seen surprised, made a gasp of recognition. “It’s the tower,” He said.
The technician was right. Suspended before them in midair was a perfect rendition of the upper part of the radio tower, rendered in three dimensions and rotating slowly on its vertical axis. Ed reached out toward the phenomenon. In response, the sphere drifted silently a few inches closer to the technician, bringing the metallic projection within his reach. Lamont noticed that the sphere was now a darker, duller color.
Ed swept his hand experimentally through the shimmering projection as one might through a dust mote in a beam of light. The result was remarkable: The vantage point of the image appeared to fall downward, sending the top of the tower up toward the ceiling while the length of the structure passed rapidly before their eyes. Tilting his head to the side, Ed held his palm flat and the movement stopped.
“The image is responding to your gestures, chief,” Clifford whispered.
Ed nodded. “I’ve never seen anything quite like this.”
Very slowly, the technician lowered the level of his palm. The image responded by appearing to move upward along the length of the tower, this time at a more leisurely pace that allowed them to see a variety of symbols associated with different areas as they passed by. Composed of collections of dots, the symbols looked entirely unfamiliar to Lamont. Flicking his hand downward, Ed moved their view more quickly up the tower until what they were seeing was roughly similar to what it had been at first.
Abigail pulled her hand away from her chest, where she was gripping her radio box, to point at an area that was highlighted in red. Lamont recognized this as being the portion of the tower that they had entered, roughly halfway between its tip and the large spherical projections. “It’s showing us where we are,” The navigator noted, pointing at a bright red point in the center of the translucent tower. In response, the sphere drifted toward her, and the image with it. She pulled her hand away, placing it against the wall, and the object moved back to Ed.
“Okay,” Spratt said, using slight movements of his hand to pull the image downward. He tapped with the point of his finger at the very top of the tower. “We want to go here, right?”
The sphere pulled away from Ed a few inches, and the image drew in to a closer view of the center of the tower, focusing on a pill-shaped object that Lamont realized must be the area in which they stood. He could, in fact, now make out the ghostly outlines of the landing bay, the strange objects within it, and a tiny rendition of the asteroid pod. Suddenly, he felt the force of acceleration pull him down toward the floor, and the pill-shaped marker began ascending the image.
“Going up!” Ed exclaimed.
Your prose is magical. Thank you for being.