Constance found herself torn between the commotion surrounding the formerly-lost Clifford Ashton and the wonder of their new surroundings, and she wasn’t the only one. Eight of the ten crew members surrounded Ashton, offering relief that he was still apparently well and peppering him with questions about his experiences in the tower over the past two days. Meanwhile, Lamont was attempting to reach Rico with the radio on his wrist, evidently without success.
The colonists, having little investment in the scene, began to wander out into the strange space. It reminded Constance of something out of a children’s fairytale book, so much so that she would not have been surprised to see some miniature imp peek its head between the fronds, if that’s what they were, of a nearby powder blue fern, if that’s what it was. The Downs boys immediately began to frolick, drawn magnetically to a crystalline, tree-like structure that appeared suitable for climbing. Fantastic forms, some plant-like, some architectural and some defying classification, were separated by meandering paths and platforms of various heights beneath the baroquely fluted dome of a ceiling far overhead. The colors were all pastels and translucencies, punctuated by flourishes of metallic silvers and golds. All this was set jarringly against a distant backdrop of star-studded night, so clearly visible that it appeared as if the place had no walls at all. Compared to the close confines normally associated with space travel, the colonist deck was palatial; but it was miniature in the face of this.
“Two days?” She heard Clifford saying in response to one of his crewmates. “It might have been two minutes or two months–I truly lost all sense of time here.”
Lamont looked up from his wrist radio then, his brow furrowing as if that statement had been particularly troubling to him. Rather than talk to Clifford, though, he took Constance by the arm. She was the only colonist who had stayed nearby, although she noticed that Mrs. Anna was hovering several yards away, watching.
“Miss Beckett,” he asked, “can you take over some things for me? I need to get this situation in hand quickly.”
“Sure thing,” Constance agreed.
“There’s water flowing through this whole level,” Lamont explained. “It’s pure and good to drink. The tree up on that knoll has edible fruit; Rosemary sampled some and suffered no ill effects.”
“What about, um, waste?” Constance asked.
Lamont shrugged. “We never got a chance to look for a loo.”
Constance nodded, mentally noting the priority. This was no colony, but apparently the colonist training would come in handy. “Anything else?” She asked.
“The most important thing,” Lamont asserted. “Stay in pairs. Don’t let anyone wander off alone. We split up when we were here, and look what happened to Ashton. And whatever you do, stay here. Do not let anyone go in the elevator or leave this level, understand?”
Constance hesitated, biting her lip. First of all, how was she supposed to exercise authority over the other colonists, let alone the crew members? And second, was assuring Lamont that she’d discourage anyone else from exploring the tower the same thing as promising him that she herself would not?
Lamont looked at her expectantly.
“Sure,” she muttered. “That makes sense.” There were, at any rate, plenty of other matters to attend to first.
The newspaperman nodded in satisfaction before turning his attention to Clifford. “Ashton,” he said, “we’d best be off.”
“Wait,” protested a nearby voice. It was Miss Anna. “I must speak with you first,” she said to Clifford.