"I've been spending a lot of time down here, studying the ships and things," Abner explained. "I start feeling mighty antsy if my mind's not occupied with something or other, and this place is just full of puzzles."
Lamont stepped from the asteroid pod's ramp onto the textured, pearlescent floor of the tower's landing bay with the unhesitant ease of familiarity. He was so absorbed in his own thoughts that it took him a brief moment to understand the expressions of wide-eyed wonder on the Westward crew members who trailed after him. They gaped as their eyes swept over the seamless, almost organic curves of the large wedge-shaped chamber. They gawked at the inscrutable shapes of the other objects, presumably vessels, that were scattered about the space, their unfamiliar contours uniformly visible in the soft pinkish glow that seemed to emanate ubiquitously from deep behind the ivory surface of the floor, walls and ceiling.
"Funny thing to get used to, isn't it, Mr. Townsend?"
Lamont was surprised to see the young man lumbering toward him, having emerged from around the front of the asteroid pod. "Abner!" He exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"
"I saw you coming in and figured it'd be rude not to say hi," Abner explained. He ran thick fingers through his blond hair, which was starting to grow out from its typical crewcut.
"You saw us coming?" Lamont asked. "From the garden?"
"Oh!" Abner chuckled at the misunderstanding. "I reckon that would be possible too, but no, I was down here, one chamber over. It turns out that when an object is approaching the tower, the outer walls of this level turn as transparent as the walls in the garden. I could actually watch your approach."
"But what are you doing here instead of in the garden?" Lamont persisted.
"I've been spending a lot of time down here, studying the ships and things," Abner explained. "I start feeling mighty antsy if my mind's not occupied with something or other, and this place is just full of puzzles."
"How does it affect you physically?"
"The longer I stay up in the garden, the harder it is to come back here," Abner said. He had noticed that two of the crew members had overcome their astonishment enough to begin negotiating crates out of the asteroid pod, so he made his way up the ramp to help them. "Up in the garden, you don't really feel like eating or sleeping much, but then it all seems to hit you at once when you leave it. But if I only go back there for an hour or two at a time, it's not so bad. The vitamins and supplements are helping." He patted the front of his overalls, where the foil of a half-eaten protein bar poked out of his pocket.
"We've brought more of those," Lamont said, nodding toward the crate that the young man was helping to guide down the ramp. "And also some new people. We're planning to rotate out a few crew members."
Abner regarded the uniformed group thoughtfully. "All right, Mr. Townsend, except the change might hit 'em pretty hard. Besides me and Clyde, hardly anyone has left the garden since that last excursion."