"Cheer up, Monty! This is what we're here for, ain't it? To explore the unknown, unravel the mysteries of the cosmos. We're having a right lark, mate."
Lamont pondered the medic's statement as he watched the map of the tower fly past in a silvery blur. "Normally, I'd agree with you," he eventually said. "We certainly felt like intruders on Epiphany Rex."
"We were told that we were intruders," Rosemary concurred. "Quite explicitly. And not just us—the other people that were there as well."
It was a fair point. Lamont recalled with discomfort that the cold, radiation-haunted world they had come to call Epiphany Rex was inhabited by two intelligent species: Unnervingly inhuman creatures that lived deep underground, and primitive, misshapen pigmy humans that appeared to worship them. The message that Lamont and Francis had gotten from the subterranean creatures was that humans were unwanted on that world—not just the visitors from Westward, but the locals too. The situation had sparked a number of uncomfortable questions in the newspaperman's mind, not the least of which was: If the humans were not native to the planet, where had they come from? And how long ago had they arrived?
"But this tower is different," Lamont reminded her. "By all appearances, we've been invited in. Treated as guests. And if the landing bays are what they seem to be, we're not the first. Everything we've seen in this place so far indicates that not only have there been other visitors here before, but that they were something like us. They breathed air and…stood in lifts."
"Brilliant," Rosemary countered. "So where are they now?"
"That's what I hope to find out," Lamont replied, but his tone failed to be convincing. Something about the way his innards were knotted around his heart was telling him to be careful what he wished for.
Rosemary laughed glassily and defied the pulling magnetism of the wall to give him a playful nudge on the arm. "Cheer up, Monty! This is what we're here for, ain't it? To explore the unknown, unravel the mysteries of the cosmos. We're having a right lark, mate." She had dropped into a full Nottingham brogue in her forced cheerfulness.
"The thing about mysteries," Lamont noted dryly, "Is that solving them usually offers a cold comfort at best. What you said about barging in before wasn't far off the mark. This tower is big; really big. We seem to be perfectly welcome at the top, but there are thousands of levels between us and all that now. Anything might happen."
"Rico, it's your line," Rosemary replied lightly, turning her head with some effort to the other side. "You're supposed to say something about not letting…"
She stopped, making a face that was halfway between consternation and sympathy. The bulky security specialist was fast asleep, his jaw hanging loosely open. The ration bar that Lamont had given him was pinned, half-eaten, to the padded wall several inches beneath his fingertips.