"We were all so dumbstruck by the visions we were seeing," Constance explained, "that for a long spell nobody realized that it could be a two-way confab.”
"You built these?" Lamont asked, astonished.
He was looking up at what looked for all the world like the frames of a half-dozen narrow, two-story cabins. They consisted of ivory columns about six inches around, arranged in rectangular boxes that formed arch-like peaks at the top. Along the columns, a latticework of something like amber vines was forming, as if the tendrils were slowly reaching across the divide to meet each other.
"Grew them, more like," Constance answered, looking up at the structures with something like pride. "But we designed them."
"How?"
In answer, the young woman tipped her head in the direction of the grove, which stood not far away, its interior hidden as always in rainbow-dappled shadow. The last time Lamont had seen this place, it had been a picture of languid passivity as those encamped there lounged around its perimeter, waiting for their next turn with the statue. Now it was a scene of bustling activity. The grove appeared to be something of a hub, around which people dressed in colonist coveralls or crew member uniforms were coming and going. Now that he was closer, Lamont could see that there were other features in the garden that were new to him; the frames of smaller structures and apparatus of various kinds that he could not readily identify. Prominently placed just to the side of the grove was something of a stepped platform. Sitting atop the platform, he saw the slope-shouldered form of Abner Wade, talking animatedly to a group of perhaps a dozen people who were gathered around him.
"The statue made this?" Lamont asked, confused.
"We were all so dumbstruck by the visions we were seeing," Constance explained, "that for a long spell nobody realized that it could be a two-way confab. That's what I was fixing to tell you before. This here tower has things that it wants to show us—more than we could ever understand in a thousand lifetimes. But it also wants to learn from us, to see what we do, to know what we want. This garden was built out of the deep, primitive things inside us, our hankering for safety and security and rest. That, and some things it got from folks who came before. But to progress, we need to make a more deliberate connection."
"But what's the point of all this?" Lamont asked, waving his hand in the direction of the new structures. "You don't need shelter here. There's no rain, no weather of any kind."
"No, we don't need shelter," Constance agreed. "But you saw what it was like before. We were wasting away. Everything was so easy that we lost our wills. We have higher needs than vittles and a roof. Structure, pecking order, vision, purpose, privacy, ceremony. Without things like that, we're not human. That's what Miss Anna realized when first she set foot on Westward."
"Miss Anna," Lamont repeated, looking around. "Where is she?"
Constance nodded her head behind them, frowning. "She's off yonder, on her own. She maintains she wants no part of this."