0186: The Attendants

Ziggurat #94

“The what?” Amila asked.

“Oh—the cloud of witnesses,” Clifford repeated sheepishly, looking down at the hands that were folded neatly in his lap. He looked rather pathetic, dressed only in the t-shirt and shorts and high socks that he had been wearing underneath his pressure suit lining. “That’s just a phrase I remembered from somewhere that seemed fitting for them. They never called themselves anything. But there’s so much we don’t know yet–”

“Slow down,” Captain Carter ordered, lifting a hand from the pommel of his walking stick. “Who are you talking about? Is the tower occupied?”

“Oh yes,” Clifford confirmed, nodding vigorously. “Exceedingly occupied.”

“By whom?” Amila asked. “Where are they in the tower?”

Clifford’s brow furrowed behind his wire spectacles. He cocked his head to the side as if considering a complex problem. “They are the tower,” he finally concluded.

“You see?” Lamont blurted, sweeping his hand in the engineer’s direction. “That’s exactly the sort of nonsense…”

Francis shook his head, holding a hand out toward the newspaperman to silence his outburst. “These witnesses,” he asked Clifford, “you spoke to them?”

“Not exactly,” Clifford admitted. “I heard them. I listened to them. So have you, I understand.”

“The voices being broadcasted from the tower,” Amila nodded, catching his meaning. “The recordings.”

“Far more than recordings,” Ashton assured her.

“Do you mean that you interacted with them somehow?” Francis asked.

“No,” Clifford clarified, as if correcting a child who was missing the obvious. “I spoke to the Attendants. They represent the Witnesses.”

Captain Carter took a deep breath. “Who are the Attendants? Are they physical beings with whom you conversed?”

“Not physical,” Clifford explained. “At least, I don’t think so. But I only just started getting to know them, which is why I must return to the tower as soon as possible…”

Milo stepped back as Clifford suddenly stood to his feet.

“Not so fast,” Amila snapped. Her tone, Lamont thought, could bring a bag of cats to order. “You’re not going anywhere until we know what we’re dealing with.”

Clifford perched against the edge of the examination bed, visibly deflated.

“Is the tower,” Amila asked evenly, “Physically occupied by anyone else?”

“As far as I know, the only physical occupants are the people we’ve put there,” Clifford explained.

“But you did interact with somebody else in a non-physical way while you were there?” Francis pressed.

“Yes,” Clifford agreed, “It was a nonverbal method of communication with the Attendants. They stand—so to speak—as gatekeepers before the Witnesses, watching for those who are ready to add their voices to the Chorus.”

“The Chorus being what we can hear over our radios?” Milo asked.

Clifford waved his hand dismissively. “A whisper. A fraction.”

Amila lifted a hand to pinch the bridge of her nose. “Did the Attendants tell you anything to suggest that the people we put there are in any kind of physical danger?”

The engineer shook his head decisively. “Our people are absolutely safe. The safest place in the universe…”

“...Is in the center of God’s will?” Lamont finished.

“Yes!” Agreed Clifford. “Precisely!”