“In fact, the garden solves all the important problems. Practically the moment we arrived at this tower, it guided us to a location where staying put was a very easy choice.”
“Get them out and bring them where?” Rosemary asked. “Here?”
The bullish colonist shrugged, his shoulders drooping. Any reserves of energy that he had mustered appeared to be quickly fading. “All we’ve got to do is survive for a while,” he muttered.
Lamont’s eyes roamed doubtfully around the space. He couldn’t begin to conceive of who or what it might have been designed for. The randomly-spaced, glassy columns and the irregularly shaped platforms that rose from the carpetlike floor between them were apparently the only feature of the level. He could imagine reclining on one of the platforms and getting lost in the slow, hypnotic dance of the luminescent blobs inside the columns. He patted his hands over the pockets of the old field jacket he was wearing over his vacuum suit until he found the one he was looking for. Snapping open the pocket, he pulled out a ration bar, opened the wrapper, wrenched a dense morsel off the side, and tossed it on the beige floor.
Clyde, Rosemary and Rico watched him with bemused expressions. He glanced at them briefly before returning his gaze intently to the piece of food at their feet.
“Nothing is happening,” Rico observed.
“Exactly, mate,” Lamont agreed. “If we were up in the garden, that would have been absorbed by the ground.”
“Brilliant,” said Rosemary. “What’s your point?”
“My point is that it solves the very important problem of waste disposal. In fact, the garden solves all the important problems. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t seen anything around here yet that looks like a kitchen. Or a loo. Practically the moment we arrived at this tower, it guided us to a location where staying put was a very easy choice.”
“Aye, but it does look like we have a choice,” Rosemary observed. “The tower hasn’t stopped us from exploring if that’s what we want to do.”
“Let’s test that,” Lamont said. He turned on his heel and made directly for the shuttle column in the center of the level.
“Oy, where are you going?” Rosemary asked, hurrying to follow him.
“As far as I can,” Lamont replied.
“Señor Lamont, wait!” Rico exclaimed, forcing himself with apparent effort to catch up. He gestured a large hand toward the opened ration bar that Lamont was still holding and added heavily: “Are you going to eat that?”