Service sheds or housing for the night shift, perhaps? Or were they the local dispatch points for little nasties like the one they'd already run into?
"We'll go on foot," he announced, stepping back to the group. "Major, get the rifles and four grenades out of the trunk. Dr. Hafner, go with him and bring back the Geiger counter that's under the front passenger seat."
Harrier's eyes widened a bit at mention of the extra weaponry, but he obeyed without argument. Meredith consulted his watch: they'd already used up over an hour of the four he'd allotted for his reconnaissance. The return trip should be faster, but that was still a lot of tower to explore in two hours. They'd have to make some guesses as to where the most interesting sections were likely to be.
Barner and Hafner returned with their loads. "Okay," Meredith said, slinging his Stoner 5.56 mm over his shoulder and hooking two of the rifle grenades onto his belt. "Stay in a loose formation and keep your eyes open."
The cluster of huts surrounding the tower base were not, as Meredith had assumed, physically connected to the structure, but were placed two or three meters away from its dull-metal wall.
"Interesting," Hafner said as they circled the tower in search of a door. "First structure we've come across in here that doesn't have that white ceramic coating."
"Would that make it a more recent building?" Perez suggested. "Put up near the end, when they didn't have time for cosmetic appearances?"
"Or else it's subject to vibrations," Meredith said, recalling the fragile ceramic in the village building. "I think I see a door around that side. Let's take a look."
Like the doors they'd seen elsewhere, this one was tall, slender, and elaborately carved. It was also unlocked, leading into a bare lobby like area shaped like a small piece of pie with a bite taken out of the tip. The missing point contained a floor-to-ceiling cylinder. "The elevator, I'd guess," Barner said as he took one final look outside and closed the door behind them. "Shall we see if it's running?"
"We can," Meredith said reluctantly, "but we'd better not actually ride it. Let's see if the Spinners understood the concept of stairs."
It took several minutes, but eventually they discovered that pressing a wall design caused the whole cylinder to rotate, bringing an off-center and doorless opening into view. Stepping into the opening and turning to the right led into the elevator car proper, while a left-hand turn ended in the stairway Meredith had hoped to find. With the colonel in the lead, they started up.
Progress was slow, hampered as they were by both the relatively cramped quarters and by Meredith's insistence on slowly easing his weight onto each new step.
Hafner muttered at least once that such exaggerated care was a waste of time with cable material structures, but Meredith ignored him. There was little conversation; faint hums and clicks were becoming audible from the areas around and above them, and no one seemed willing to drown them out with idle chatter.
Meredith took them to the very top of the stairway, hoping the most important equipment would be at that level. The inside release for the rotating cylinder, once located, worked perfectly. Holding his pistol ready, the colonel stepped through the short runnel and into a garish sea of color.
For a moment he just stood there, his eyes and mind struggling furiously to adjust to the sight. Give a small child a box of crayons and a detailed photo of a shuttle flight deck, he thought, and you might wind up with something like this. The meterwide semicircular ring that wrapped around the room beneath the windows was a familiar control board design; the panels set into it were decidedly not. Painted some of the brightest colors Meredith had ever seen, the panels had curved or even squiggled edges; some vaguely rectangular, but most not. For several seconds Meredith's brain tried anyway to classify them in terms of familiar polygons—squarish, trapezoidal, triangular—before finally giving up the exercise as pointless. The controls themselves—mostly black, but with occasional colored ones mixed in—were similarly arranged without regard for the concept of straight lines. None of the panels had exactly the same shape or layout, and some of the color juxtapositions were almost painful. Make that a color-blind child, he added.
The others were crowding out behind him now, muttering their own reactions to the visual assault. Of all of them, Hafner seemed the least affected, stepping over to the board with only a slight pause and peering down at it. "Well, at least the controls seem to be marked," he announced. "That's something."
Meredith joined him. Sure enough, there were small black marks to the left of each of the buttons and knobs, marks that looked like a cross between Chinese and Arabic. "Yeah, it really helps," he told Hafner dryly. He looked back at the wall that split this floor into halves, eyes searching for a doorway that would get them through to the other side. Two full-length cylinders, smaller versions of the elevator/stairway shaft that they flanked, were the obvious candidates.
"Sure looks like the place," Nichols commented, looking around the room. "Must be … oh, a good five to ten thousand separate controls in here. What else could anyone need that much stuff for?"
"Who knows what else they might have down here?" Perez countered, leaning carefully on a bare part of the control board to gaze out one of the windows. "One certainly gets a good view from here. Perhaps all this does is handle power or lighting for the village."
"Maybe whatever's in the other room will give us a clue," Meredith said, taking one last look at the odd Spinner lettering. In a science fiction movie, he thought, the hero would take all of ten seconds to figure out an alien control board like this. Wish to hell we'd brought one of those geniuses along.
"Colonel," Barrier said, his tone getting Meredith's instant attention. The major was peering out another of the windows. "We've got company."
Meredith followed the other's pointing finger and felt his jaw tighten.
Approaching the tower from different directions were eight mechanical creatures like the one that had chased them out of the village.
"Gorgon's Heads!" Perez hissed. "Colonel, we'd better get out of here."
Automatically, Meredith estimated distances and speeds. It would be a close race.
"Right. Everybody down the stairs— fast." He turned, took a step, and abruptly halted as his legs froze beneath him.
"Bloodsucking hell," Barrier murmured.
The two small cylinders flanking the stairway had rotated to their open positions.
Standing inside were a matched set of Gorgon's Heads.
Chapter 19
For a long moment the only sound in the room was the thudding of Meredith's own heart. The Gorgon's Heads stayed where they were, as if frozen by the same shock that had immobilized the humans. Only the gentle waving of their snakelike tentacles showed they were still active.
Hell. Now what do we do? Meredith thought. The machines were barely five meters away—impossible to miss with either his pistol or rifle … but only if he had time to get one of the weapons lined up. An unarmed Gorgon's Head might be able to get to him before he could fire; an armed one could blow him off the map a lot faster. Run for it? Again, if they were unarmed one or two might make it back to the stairs. But only if they were unarmed … and there were still the reinforcements coming in at ground level to be dealt with.
"Shouldn't one of us be saying, 'Take me to your leader'?" Perez asked quietly.
"Shut up," Meredith snarled.
"No, Colonel, I'm serious," Perez said. "They haven't attacked us yet, or made any other movements that could be considered hostile. Maybe they recognize we're not Spinners and are waiting for us to open communications."
"Or maybe they're waiting for their friends downstairs to join us." Still … it might be worth trying. Bracing himself, Meredith took a step forward. One of the snakes on each Gorgon's Head seemed to track the movement, but otherwise there was no reaction. "I'm Colonel Lloyd Meredith; commanding the Earth colony on Astra," he said, keeping his volume level conversational. "We come in peace, seeking the creators of this cavern."