“But why?” Lamont asked. “You’ve got everything you need here. The safest thing to do is to stay put and wait while Westward is repaired. You couldn’t possibly be more comfortable for three or four weeks.”
“Which colonists?” Lamont asked hastily.
Jihyun fidgeted with the hem of her black uniform undershirt. “The expedition was led by Jackson. Six other colonists went with him, and Rico insisted on going too.”
“Is Miss Beckett with them?” Lamont asked.
The astrophysicist nodded soberly, and Lamont suddenly felt his heart in his throat.
“Now, don’t fret,” Rosemary said soothingly, coming around behind Lamont to wrap a copper-sleeved arm around Jihyun’s waist. “We’ll get this all sorted out.”
“Who’s bloody idea was it to go exploring?” Lamont hissed, forgetting about the equipment case he had been pushing out of the lift. It stayed half-inside the lift, the doors of which remained open.
“It was mine, and Mr. Clyde was eager to do it.” The answer came from Anna Lightfoot-Owens, who was emerging from the garden into the mossy patch around the central column. She held her head up confidently, but her wide-set eyes shone with concern.
“But why?” Lamont asked. “You’ve got everything you need here. The safest thing to do is to stay put and wait while Westward is repaired. You couldn’t possibly be more comfortable for three or four weeks.”
“That’s the problem, son,” Anna agreed. “Let me show you what I mean.”
She placed a brown, slightly wrinkled hand in Lamont’s and led him insistently down a path in the garden. Rosemary, holding Jihyun’s arm, followed behind. It didn’t take long for Lamont to see that they were headed in the general direction of the feature that they had come to call the Grove. They didn’t go all the way, though; Anna stopped at a crystalline outcropping from which the organic-looking arches of the grove could be seen about 50 yards away. A significant number of people were clustered around it, at least thirty by Lamont’s count. It wasn’t just colonists either; he saw some crew members in partial uniform as well. Most of them were gathered in small groups, standing and holding hands or sitting cross-legged on the soft floor. Some were lying on their backs. A few were wandering in small circles, making aimless motions with their hands. From where they were, Lamont could hear a low hum of voices, talking or singing, that struck him as somehow familiar.
After watching silently with them for several minutes, Miss Anna finally spoke. “They’re comfortable, all right,” she said to the newspaperman. “So comfortable, in fact, that in three to four week’s time, I can’t see them wanting to leave.”
Monday: Rogue Factor