Lamont's mind flashed grimly to the vision of the cyclopian giant that Anna Lightfoot-Owens had described before any of them had ever seen the tower.
"That's why I'm here," Rosemary said. The medic had emerged from the asteroid pod's cockpit while the two men talked, her medical satchel slung over one shoulder. "I should be able to keep them stable enough until we get them to Westward's medical bay."
"Sounds like a lot of trouble when the ship is still in urgent need of repairs," Abner observed after offering Rosemary a warm and rather bashful greeting.
Rosemary nodded. "Aye, but Dr. Faust and I want to see if we can better understand what's happening to you lot in the garden, under laboratory conditions." She lowered her voice until it was barely above a whisper. "Besides, the crew members we've brought were on the mining expeditions to the moon below. They're too nervous to be good for much on the ship now."
"It would be better, ma'am, if we could all just come back to the ship and make do," Abner suggested.
Rosemary frowned in consternation. "We're working on that," she muttered.
"I'm surprised," Lamont admitted hastily, "that more colonists haven't joined you in venturing beyond the garden. Ill-fated as Clyde's expedition was, everybody recovered. There are still hundreds of levels that are accessible and unexplored."
"They recovered physically," Abner grunted, lifting a metal chest from the cargo hold's floor and carrying it down the ramp. "Mentally, the disappointment seems to have been too much for them. Some of them went and joined the pilgrims, and the others are just wiling time away in the colonist camp."
"Pilgrims?" Lamont asked.
Abner set the chest down and gave a wry smile that looked foreign to his blunt, open features. "That's what I call the folks who have gone to squat over by the grove. They've formed their own little community, taking turns talking to the statue or whatever it is they do, and then talking to each other about what the statue tells 'em. The garden is pretty much split in two now between the groups."
Lamont's mind flashed grimly to the vision of the cyclopian giant that Anna Lightfoot-Owens had described before any of them had ever seen the tower. He speaks in mysteries, wonderful to hear. The giant holds a sword, and with the sword he divides a body in two. One half of the body he consumes. The other half cannot live; it has been separated from the whole.
You're putting stock in that woman's ecstatic mutterings now? He asked himself. And yet, viewed as a metaphor, the vision was strikingly prophetic.
"Let's get up there," Lamont said abruptly. "I need to see this for myself."
"I'll join you," Abner offered. "It's past time I paid a visit."
Lamont waved a hand at the group of crew members who stood around the collection of supplies, still looking around the docking bay with cowed expressions. "Alright, you lot. Pick up your things and do as I tell you. It's a bit to take in all at once, but it's all perfectly safe."
"And for goodness' sake, don't forget to take your vitamins," Rosemary added.