437: Circles of Hell
Ziggurat #352
Each colonist appeared to be lost in his or her own world, making gestures that had no relation to the action of others that happened to be nearby.
The doors of the shuttle snapped open after a descent that took less than a minute. Lamont held his breath, expecting to see the familiar forms of exotic foliage and to field the questions of curious refugees as they returned from their dangerous expedition. What would he say?
The breath was exhaled in a choked gasp. What he saw outside the shuttle was utterly unexpected, and he stood in the threshold for a long moment, just trying to comprehend it.
He was looking at a large open space. Like the level from which they had just come, there were no walls or obstructions to speak of between their place in the central column and the curved outer wall of the tower. But instead of the panoply of stars on the horizon that he had come to expect, he saw only a misty greenish haze. It was met by a floor that looked similar to the patches of pale moss-like ground into which the refugees had learned to discard their organic waste. This was the only vaguely recognizable element, and it made up the entire floor of the level. Between them and the outer walls, the only other obstructions were the colonists themselves, and a scattering of materials that had been brought from Westward and that were scattered, apparently at random, around the space. The refugees themselves sat or shuffled in various places, performing weird pantomimes. There was something puppet-like about their actions; an effect made all the more pronounced by the fact that they were covered in countless strings.
More accurately, they were fine threads or filaments that emerged or sprouted from the spongy floor and enveloped each colonist like a thin, translucent cocoon. The filaments slipped under the clothing of the level's occupants, clinging in clusters to their skin, with a special concentration at the back of their necks. The strings moved with the languid movements of the colonists, keeping them at all times connected to the floor. Each colonist appeared to be lost in his or her own world, making gestures that had no relation to the action of others that happened to be nearby. Lamont suddenly felt that he had entered a circle of hell, and was watching lost souls perform a sick, tragic parody of a former life. With dawning horror, he remembered the level just below with its huge, steaming vats.
He looked over at Constance. She was standing just outside the threshold, leaning on the central column for support. She surveyed the scene, visibly seething, with tears rolling down her red cheeks.
"I don't think they see us," Lamont observed numbly, touching her copper-sleeved arm.
Constance pulled up the hood of her vacuum suit. "We've got to move fast," she said. "For all we know the attendants could change their minds any minute."
"Where are you going?" Lamont asked.
Constance stepped out pointed a gloved finger to a spot just visible around the side of the central column, where a shiny black cylinder rose from the floor halfway across the level. "To the grove," she said.