“I’ve rarely seen you consume anything besides caffeine and nicotine,” The young medic explained. “I’m not sure you would have noticed feeling malnourished.”
“I was rather hungry all of the sudden,” Rico admitted sheepishly.
“I just ate two of them myself,” Clyde agreed. “I woke up feeling as if I hadn’t eaten in days.” The three men’s eyes turned to follow the motion of a canteen as it rolled across the carpetlike floor. It had been tossed aside by the red-bearded Finnian Ward, who was now voraciously tearing through his rucksack.
“It is peculiar,” Rico observed, stuffing the foil wrappers in his jacket pocket. “The whole time I have been in the garden, I do not remember feeling hungry even once. And now…”
“The same thing happened to me a couple days ago,” Rosemary explained. She had left Constance, who was now weakly tearing into a ration bar herself.
Abner wade, his stocky face looking even more pale than usual, had padded lethargically up to join them. “Maybe there’s some kind of gas in here,” he suggested after being quickly caught up on the conversation. “In which case, Lamont and Rosemary should be feeling the effects of it by now.”
Lamont took a few deep breaths and shook his head. “I don’t feel anything.”
“I don’t think it’s this level at all,” Clyde said. “I started to feel unusually tired almost as soon as I left the garden. I reckon we’d all just hit our limit by the time we got here.”
“So it’s something about the garden?” Abner asked.
“Like it’s punishing us for leaving,” Clyde suggested darkly, scratching at a sideburn.
“Hold on,” Lamont interjected. “I’ve been to the garden plenty of times and I’ve never been affected like this.”
“That’s true,” Rosemary admitted thoughtfully. “But you’ve got a strange constitution.”
“What do you mean by that?” Lamont demanded.
“I’ve rarely seen you consume anything besides caffeine and nicotine,” The young medic explained. “I’m not sure you would have noticed feeling malnourished.”
“That’s a gross exaggeration,” The newspaperman complained.
“The fact is,” Jackson interrupted pointedly, “Nearly all the evidence looks to be pointing in one direction. The garden is perfectly suited to accommodating us in ease and comfort. All our needs are cared for. And if we leave it, we seem to experience effects that strongly compel us to return.”
“That’s for sure,” Abner agreed, making a sour face. “I don’t recall the last time I felt this awful.” A sudden thought seemed to occur to him, and he abruptly left the group to visit Constance, who was sitting with her face in her hands.
“So what are you going to do?” Lamont asked.
“Whatever it takes,” Jackson replied firmly. “One way or another, I’m going to get the other colonists out of that honeypot before it’s too late.”
Rosemary did fall asleep while in the shuttle when it was still inside the Tower's shuttle bay. Lamont never slept while inside the Tower