Prayed? Lamont thought. It struck him that he had interpreted the medic’s statement as a petition rather than the common expression that it was. This place, he realized, was perhaps the most awe-inspiring vision he had ever seen.
“There is something very strange about all this,” Rico said darkly as he looked out the open door of the lift. “I think that we should return to the pod quickly.”
Ed Spratt nodded slightly, but he appeared mesmerized by the view outside the threshold. “It’s weird, all right. But since we’re here, let’s take a quick look around.”
“Around what?” Lamont asked. The question seemed pertinent enough since, as far as he could see, they were looking out into the abyss of empty space.
Abigail pointed her radio box in the direction of the star-speckled doorway, pursed her lips, and shrugged.
“It can’t be what it looks like,” Rosemary asserted. Then, before anyone could stop her, she tugged herself away from the wall and hopped through the opening.
“Señorita!” Rico exclaimed, pulling himself away to follow her.
“It’s fine, mate,” the medic asserted, taking a step away from the lift. “There’s a floor here.” She glanced at the miniature instrument panel on her wrist. “And oxygen, like everywhere else.”
One by one, the other members of the party tentatively stepped out of the lift. Despite its initial appearance, they were indeed standing in the uppermost portion of the tower. It was, if anything, more incredible than the garden level they had visited before.
All around, Lamont could see the empty space outside the tower with vivid clarity. In fact, the stars looked sharper, the nebulous clouds of the system more vivid in their color, than they had ever looked through the windows of Westward. Looking down, Lamont could see that they were standing on a highly-polished black surface that reflected the expanse and their own space-suited figures. A bright shape in the center of the reflection drew his eyes upward, where he could see the distinctive petaled shape of the tower’s beacon, as he thought of it. It seemed to hover at some difficult-to-discern distance above their heads, following the otherwise invisible curve of the structure’s domed top. As from the outside, its color was mostly amber, but the close proximity afforded an even better examination of the kaleidoscopic patterns of subtle shades and colors that seemed to oscillate dizzyingly toward or away from the dark center of the four-petaled flower. Turning his head, Lamont could see the lift, its door still open, occupying the center of the level as it had the garden. This time, however, it stopped short of the ceiling, such as it was, its cylinder terminating in a pearlescent dome.
There was a quiet hiss, and Lamont looked around until he saw that Ed was twisting his helmet off, his jaw hanging open uncharacteristically as he took in the sights through thick glasses.
“You sure that’s a good idea, mate?” Lamont asked.
The chief technician shrugged slightly. “Who knows? Maybe we’ll need our own oxygen later.”
“God forbid,” Rosemary prayed as she lifted her own helmet from her head.
Prayed? Lamont thought. It struck him that he had interpreted the medic’s statement as a petition rather than the common expression that it was. This place, he realized, was perhaps the most awe-inspiring vision he had ever seen. There was something of the sacred and the dreadful about it, something that made him want to cower and adore. But toward what, exactly, were these feelings directed? He couldn’t be sure, but he could see from the stunned expressions of his companions that they were having a similar experience.
As with the garden area, this fantastic space apparently occupied a whole level of the tower, in this case the uppermost one. Unlike the former, however, there was nothing at all in sight, except for the lift column, that interrupted the view or provided a sense of scale. Tracing his eyes from his feet outward, Lamont could just detect a faint, blue-haloed demarcation indicating where he thought the floor might meet whatever passed for walls in a place like this.
As if following the same line of thought, Spratt said: “I want to see what it’s like at the edge.”
“We should hurry,” Abigail noted, “considering the circumstances.”
“And we should stick together this time,” added Rico.
Ed nodded his agreement. “I guess one direction is as good as another, right?”
“Let’s go that way,” Rosemary suggested, pointing her finger toward where Westward could be seen, hanging small and alone in nebulous space.
Next: The Wall