429: Trust Fall

Ziggurat #344

Upon stepping into the shuttle inside the column, Lamont suddenly felt thirty pounds lighter. He had not realized until that moment how fatigued he had become from carrying the bulk of the space helmet on his shoulders. He supposed that a localized gravity field was being employed in the shuttle to counteract that of the moon. Looking at Constance, he could see that she was leaning her back against the padded wall with an expression of relief. He wished dearly that he had some means of communicating with her that could not be intercepted by their spectral guide.

A quick look around told him that the interior of this shuttle was quite identical to those that were used to travel between levels in the top half of the tower. Here as there, the padded inner walls exerted a subtle magnetic pull, encouraging its occupants to remain in one spot. There was even a navigation sphere nested in the ceiling above them, though the apparition evidently did not need its help to command the shuttle. No sooner did the doors snap closed than a sequence of lights began pulsing vertically upward along their smooth white surface, probably indicating that their descent had begun. How fast they were moving, Lamont could not begin to guess, since there was no apparent inertia inside the shuttle.

"This won't take long," the specter assured them, taking one last pull of its simulated cigarette before tossing it, as before, into nonexistence. "These pods are designed to travel much faster than the lift used in the levels above us. In the meantime, you can take off those helmets if you'd like."

Lamont glanced at the atmospheric indicator in his helmet's inner collar. Sure enough, it glowed a reassuring green, suggesting that the air inside the shuttle was breathable. He looked at his ghostly counterpart suspiciously.

The apparition gave him a wry smile. "Do you suppose that I've been waiting until now to kill you?"

"From what I've seen so far, it's only a matter of time," Lamont countered.

"You're still only looking at things as they appear on the surface," the apparition lamented. "You still don't understand."

"Then help us understand," Constance said, but her voice was suddenly muffled, as if she had fallen through the bottom of the shuttle. Looking at her, Lamont saw that she had removed her bulky helmet. Fixing it to the wall beside her, she touched the throat of her Martian vacuum suit. The transparent membranous shield over her face receded mysteriously into the hood, which she then pulled back, causing a cascade of sweat-darkened curls to spill over her shoulders. Lamont's initial impulse was to blanch at her recklessness, but as he saw the vertically scrolling lights reflected in the bubble of her now empty helmet, he realized that he was deriving a false sense of security from his suit.

"What's the point of all this?" Constance was continuing, her voice muffled now through his helmet. "If you can build all this, I reckon you can do anything. Why is it so important to you to trap us here, manipulate us into wanting to stay? What do we have that you could possibly want?"