“It was made absolutely clear to me,” Clifford said, his eyes unfocusing dreamily, “that whatever reason we thought we had for being out among the stars, the real purpose of Westward was to bring us there, to that tower.”
“We combed the garden looking for you, and you were gone,” Lamont explained.
“It’s peculiar,” Clifford agreed. “The space isn’t that large. You should have seen me there, even if I was still under the canopy. As it turned out, more time had passed than I thought—a lot more time.”
“For us too,” Lamont said. “We were in the garden for about six hours, though to me it only felt like perhaps one hour. How long was it between when you left the grove and when I arrived with the first group of colonists?”
The mousy engineer shrugged. “It didn’t occur to me to check the time,” he admitted. “I was overwhelmed by what I had experienced and in something of a daze.”
“Did you feel afraid?” Lamont asked, recalling the sense of dread that accompanied his own dream or vision. “That we wouldn’t return for you? That you’d be alone there?”
“Not at all,” Clifford answered confidently. “I wasn’t precisely sure what I had experienced, but it convinced me of two things: That I wasn’t alone at all, and that the crew of Westward would return to the tower, if they had left at all.”
“Why?” Lamont urged him.
“It was made absolutely clear to me,” Clifford said, his eyes unfocusing dreamily, “that whatever reason we thought we had for being out among the stars, the real purpose of Westward was to bring us there, to that tower. Now that we’ve arrived, it has no other purpose. Just like the other ships we saw.”
“And the—the people—in those ships. What of them?” The newspaperman asked.
“They stayed,” Clifford answered, his eyes shifting to lock clearly on those of Lamont. “They joined the Chorus.”
“So they’re still there?” Lamont pressed, stepping away from his perch so that there was less than an arm’s length between them. “Somewhere in that tower?”
“I suppose they must be,” Clifford agreed.
“Alive?” Lamont asked.
Clifford made a vague gesture that, to Lamont, indicated that he didn’t understand the relevance of the question.