“I do not like this place,” Rico concluded.
Mere moments after it had silently snapped closed, the elevator door opened again, revealing a scene that could hardly have been more different than the one they had just been looking at. Where a few seconds ago there had been a fantastic, dreamlike composition of lovely semi-organic shapes softly lit in pastels, there was now a chamber in which large, metallic tanks or tubes cast weird shadows in a dim, deep-green light. Her eyes couldn’t pierce the gloom very far, but it was obvious that, unlike the garden, the walls of this area did not display a view of the stars outside.
“And to think this was down here the whole time,” Cassius commented dryly.
Finnian Ward stroked his patchy red beard thoughtfully. “Maybe it’s something else’s idea of paradise,” he speculated. “It reminds me a wee bit of some places I’ve seen in Mars.”
“We may as well take a look,” Jackson suggested. He stepped through the open threshold and Constance quickly followed him.
The first thing that Constance noticed was the heat. Her Martian vacuum suit shielded her body from all but the most extreme temperature changes, but she felt the warm blast of air on her cheeks. The second thing she noticed was the smell. She couldn’t place it, but to her it smelled vaguely organic, with a hint of rust and a sharp, acrid note that lingered in the back of her throat. She and Jackson both looked back at the others in the shuttle at the same time.
“There must be some kind of electromagnetic barrier around the elevator car,” Jackson observed. “Like the one in the landing bay.”
“We’re gonna have to be more careful from now on,” Constance agreed. “We’re lucky there’s an atmosphere in here.”
“Well, you could have waited a half-second to see how I fared,” Clyde pointed out.
“Quit bickering and make room for the rest of us,” Finnian said impatiently. Out of the group, he was the only one who seemed visibly eager to explore the space. As Clyde and Constance stepped aside, the others filed out, squinting and blinking. All except Cassius, who remained in the shuttle, folding his arms resolutely.
Constance began a slow circuit around the central elevator column, which on this level was surrounded by an elevated platform, as the dark metal cylinders beyond stretched both above their heads and below their feet. The dim green glow also came from below. There was no obvious method of moving from the platform to the larger space beyond. A few of them switched on their electric lights, playing the yellow beams along rows of tanks, pipes and tubes, but the lights were not powerful enough to reach the outer edges of the tower.
“I do not like this place,” Rico concluded.
“I’m for moving on,” Abner agreed. He rubbed his eyes, blinking.
Constance also felt eager to return to the elevator. The hot, oily air here was suffocating, and she was beginning to feel a creeping exhaustion.