“Perhaps we will find out,” Rico said. As he said this, his hand dropped unconsciously to the automatic pistol holstered at his hip.
“I have seen this work before,” Rico said as he looked up at their distorted reflections in the chromium globe that was nestled at the top of the elevator. “It seems simple enough.”
“We’ve all seen it work before,” Cassius Drake murmured dourly. Constance had the impression that the hawk-faced colony ‘tooth-puller,’ as he was affectionately called, had joined the expedition more out of a sense of obligation than personal choice.
“Everybody flat against the sides,” Clyde reminded the group. “It won’t come down otherwise.”
The seven occupants pressed their backs firmly against the padded walls of the elevator, holding their bags at their sides. The group looked prepared for anything. They all wore skin-tight metallic vacuum suits beneath their clothes and carried rucksacks packed with a variety of equipment and a large supply of the food rations that had been otherwise untouched since their arrival at the garden.
True to experience, the curved door snapped closed when all of them were in their proper places. The reflective orb drifted down from its nest toward the waiting hands of Jackson, who watched in wide-eyed fascination as the glittering particles burst from its surface to form a three-dimensional map of the upper part of the tower. “Who—or what—could have made such a thing?” He wondered aloud.
“Perhaps we will find out,” Rico said. As he said this, his hand dropped unconsciously to the automatic pistol holstered at his hip.
“Where are we going?” Constance asked. Her eyes followed Clyde’s hands as he slowly manipulated the glittering map. He turned the tower around on its axis, moved up and down its length, peered more closely at one area, then another. For the most part, Constance only saw the outlined divisions of rooms and levels, some of them containing collections of inscrutable shapes.
“I’m inclined toward a systematic approach,” Jackson concluded. “We’ll start with the first level beneath this one.”
There was a murmur of general consent in the elevator. Jackson pulled downward with his hand until he was looking once again at the top of the tower, with a small red beacon indicating their present location. With a decisive punch of his finger, he directed the elevator to take them down a single level.