Cavalon stepped out from under the SGL and for whatever reason, decided to look up. He instantly regretted it.
The immense curved ceiling stretched out dozens of kilometers above, sending a wave of vertigo through him. He quickly diverted his gaze down, but found much the same thing, only in a direction in which he could fall. He leveled out his chin, focusing on the simple bronze door at the end of the long platform. He should really just keep his eyes straight ahead for the remainder of his life. No good ever came from looking up or down.
Along with a clunk of boots, Rake appeared beside him. A click sounded in his helmet, and the readout indicated that Rake switched back to universal comms.
“Atmo reads safe,” Rake said, “but let’s keep helmets on just in case.”
“Copy,” Griffith said.
“You guys ready?” She slid past Cavalon, then Mesa, and started down the platform toward the bronze sphere. Mesa fell in directly behind her.
Cavalon startled as Griffith gave him a rough pat on the back. “Everything okay, doc?”
“Yes.” Cavalon grimaced as his voice broke. One syllable. He had to croak out one convincing-enough word, and he couldn’t even manage that.
“One foot in front of the other,” Griffith prompted, tone patient.
“Right.”
Cavalon willed his feet forward, focusing on the back of Mesa’s head to discourage his wandering gaze. They finally arrived at the end of the walkway, where the platform fanned out wider as it melded seamlessly into the side of the bronze sphere.
“I don’t see any access panels.” Rake walked to the door and ran her hands over the edges of the door frame.
Mesa cleared her throat. “Might I suggest…” She held up the polished gold pyramid.
Rake swept her hand forward in invitation. Mesa took a few careful steps toward the door. Rake and Griffith drew their pistols.
Just as it had aboard the SGL, the pyramid began to glow. The door split down the middle, and the bronze panels slid silently into the walls on either side. They all stood frozen for a few seconds, staring into the darkness beyond the door.
One by one a series of recessed, vertical wall trenches lit, illu minating a square, open chamber slightly larger than the SGL’s common room. The walls gleamed the same soft gold as the atlas pyramid. Terminals sat recessed into the wall on both sides. The left looked like a standard computer display, but the right appeared to be some kind of apparatus, with a strange half-cylindrical slot set into the face of the glass screen. A floor-to-ceiling, four-meter-wide piece of dark glass dominated the far wall. Cavalon couldn’t tell if it was a viewscreen or a window.
Rake’s voice crackled over comms. “I’m on point.”
“Copy,” Griffith replied.
She crossed the threshold and Griffith hovered off her shoulder. Together, they swept the room quickly and efficiently while Mesa and Cavalon waited outside the door.
“Clear.” Rake lowered her aim but kept her weapon in hand.
Cavalon crossed through the doorway, and Mesa followed with the atlas. The door slid shut behind them. Sealed inside, a thick weight of silence overcame Cavalon. Hard-angled trenches of golden metal formed the walls, while a single panel of dark, ribbed aerasteel comprised the floor, yet both dampened sounds like thick carpet.
Mesa headed for the terminal on the left, but the large glass panel straight ahead grabbed Cavalon’s attention. As he moved closer, it became clear that it was, in fact, a window into another area. However, the extremely thick glass heavily distorted the view. There were no lights on the other side, but from what little spilled in, he could make out an open circular chamber ten meters in diameter. Strips of coiled copper rounded up the arcing walls in unbroken rings, set between dozens of rows of reflective panels.