Lamont began making a motion as if he were wafting smoke from the floor toward the ceiling, and suddenly the three were watching in something of a daze as countless levels flew past them in a glittering haze.
“Are you sure you want to come, Rico?” Rosemary asked the security specialist as he methodically chewed the dense ration bar that was dwarfed by his fist. His normally bright eyes seemed dull and sunken with fatigue. Before he had planted himself against the magnetic wall of the lift, his posture had suggested that he was having difficulty remaining upright.
“I cannot let you go into danger alone,” Rico replied decisively.
“You’re not looking like you can stand up to much right now, mate,” Lamont observed.
“I will be fine,” Rico assured him. “Proceed.”
The door of the shuttle snapped closed, and Lamont followed the now strangely familiar routine of summoning the control sphere from its nest.
“What’s the plan?” Rosemary asked.
Lamont watched as the surface of the globe expanded into floating particles that depicted the upper portion of the tower. He could see a red, pill-shaped beacon that represented their current location, which seemed to be about 10-15 levels beneath the dome-shaped top of the structure. He could see slender lines representing the thin columns in the space outside the lift. Three levels above, he could see the collection of shapes that represented the garden, and about five levels below them he could see the area that he recognized as the landing bay. The ghostly map dissolved into nothingness near his knees a level or two beneath that. He looked at Rosemary through the glittering outlines. “This represents the area of the tower that we’ve partially explored so far—although we’ve only actually seen a fraction of it.”
Rosemary nodded, her green eyes flickering over the projection.
Lamont began gesturing his hands as if he were scooping sand into a pile in front of him. This increased the number of levels that were visible as the representation of the tower became thinner. A moment later, he frowned in frustration. The control mechanism did not seem to allow the map to have a circumference that was smaller than that of the orb itself, which was slightly larger than a human cranium. They were now looking at a rather abstract representation of perhaps 50 levels. Lamont began making a motion as if he were wafting smoke from the floor toward the ceiling, and suddenly the three were watching in something of a daze as countless levels flew past them in a glittering haze.
Finally, the motion slowed and the projection expanded, surrounding Lamont’s torso with a loose representation of the surface of the moon below them. The base of the tower, squat and monolithic with a perimeter of buttresses, rose from the moon and faded into haze above Lamont’s head. It had taken a very long time for Lamont to merely manipulate the projection to this point. Glancing at the faces of Rosemary and Rico, he could see that they felt at least as sick and dizzy as he did.
He felt as if he was moving his gloved finger through molasses as he pointed it somewhere near the base. His voice lacked conviction as he forced himself to say: “Alright, then. Let’s go here.”
Um. If it were me, with everyone passing out and starving, I wouldn't be picking another level at random. There are two places they know could provide a recovery - the garden and Westward. The new evidence seems to show so far only places that they might not survive. So why pick another while near exhaustion? One more fail and they could be dead.
too close to the bottom might be too close for the towers comfort and forcing it to show itself / forcing its hand; so to speak?