“And now?” Owl asked.
“We need to go down and walk about halfway across this cavity,” Joanne said.
“Down?” Castle asked. “But how?”
“This might be some kind of elevator,” Green said, examining the scaffolding-like structure. Jeff followed him.
The engineer was right. In the middle of the scaffolding there was a smaller, square platform, at the end of which a control panel jutted out of the floor.
“Come on,” Jeff called, waving his shipmates over to the platform. When everyone was standing on the elevator, Green pressed the only button on the panel.
A small railing rose up from the floor, separating the elevator from the platform. Then a horn sounded and the platform began its descent with a loud rattling noise.
“Well, it seems to work,” Mac commented dryly.
“Or our journey would have ended here,” Owl said, with a hint of regret in his voice.
“No it wouldn’t,” Joanne said. “We just would have had to look for another airlock further down.”
Owl grunted.
Castle looked up. “That sun is very weak.”
“It’s probably designed to provide light but not heat,” Jeff guessed.
“Just as well, it already feels like a sauna in here,” Joanne said.
They stood huddled together in silence as the elevator slowly descended. Jeff had to constantly wipe the sweat out of his eyes in order to see anything at all. His head was pounding and he wondered if it was from all the pent-up tension or the horrendous heat.
The descent seemed to go on forever. The platform they had come out on must have been very high up. But finally they reached the ground, and Jeff was the first to step out onto the rocky terrain. Up close, the landscape didn’t look one jot friendlier than it did from above.
“Strange,” Joanne said, looking around. “We’ve come out in the middle of a wilderness. No paths, no streets, no buildings. It doesn’t look as if anyone ever lived here.”
“Maybe they dismantled the buildings when they got to their destination planet,” Castle suggested as he bent down to touch the ground. He ran the palm of his hand over the sharp rocks.
“But then there would still be roads, and foundations,” Owl retorted.
“Or they never lived here,” Jeff said. “Maybe it was a kind of nature reserve and they came here to recuperate.”
“Recuperate?” Shorty guffawed. “Here?”
Jeff shrugged. “Let’s keep going,” he ordered. “Which way do we go?”
Eyes fixed on her handheld, Joanne turned around in a circle several times. She appeared to be having difficulty orientating herself. “I think we need to go this way,” she said finally, waving an arm.
“Are you sure?” Castle asked.
“Pretty sure,” she replied, and marched off. “If not, we’ll notice soon enough and change our course.”
Castle shrugged and trotted after her.
“How far still?” Jeff asked.
“About eighty miles,” Joanne answered. “Then we should hit the outer wall of this cavity and get to the corridor that leads to the center.”
“And how deep inside this ship of horrors are we now?” Owl asked.
“About seventy-five miles.”
The radio operator groaned. “Not even a third of the way. Unbelievable. Feels like we’ve walked thousands of miles already.”
“And now we have to walk hundreds more without getting any closer to the center,” Mac said.
Joanne shook her head. “You’re wrong. Every step takes us closer to the center of the ship.”
“Bullshit,” Mac scoffed. “We’re not even going downhill.”
Joanne sighed. “Actually we are. The ground of this cavity doesn’t run parallel to the outer surface of the ship, it slants down at an angle of more than sixty degrees.”
“Yeah, but—” Owl began.
“Dumbass,” Shorty interrupted. “Think of the corridors up near the surface. They changed the vector of gravity again here. In this ship, down is not simply down.”
Owl and Mac didn’t respond.
Even Jeff had trouble imagining that this huge cavity was slanting downward toward the center of the ship.
They trudged on in the direction Joanne had indicated. They wouldn’t manage eighty miles in a day. Even if they kept up a good pace and didn’t encounter too many obstacles, they would need three full days. Or probably four, because despite his sturdy boots, Jeff’s feet were already aching from clambering across the rugged terrain.
22.
Jeff’s neck was aching when he woke up. He looked at his watch. He’d slept four hours since his watch. It felt more like four minutes. He yawned.
“Here you go!”
Joanne was standing over him with a cup of coffee.
“Great service!” he struggled to smile.
“You’ve been tossing and turning for the last half hour. I thought you’d wake up sooner.”
Jeff sat up, and took the cup gratefully. He looked around. Apart from Owl, everyone was up already. Mac and Shorty were sitting a little to the side, talking in low voices. Green was fixing something on his suit. Castle was heating up his cup of coffee with the immersion heater.
Jeff took a big gulp of the lukewarm brew. It would take a while before he felt the invigorating effect of the caffeine. “Anything to report?”
Joanne shook her head. “Nothing,” she said. “Absolutely nothing.”
“No sign of the light aliens?”
Joanne shook her head. “Maybe they only exist in the area of the ship we left behind.”
Jeff blinked in the light of the reddish sun. “Day and night don’t seem to exist here, either.”
“No, apparently not,” Joanne said. “Eternal darkness in the other parts of the ship, and perpetual depressing reddish-gray daylight here.”
“I’m surprised the aliens didn’t shut down these areas when they left the ship.”
“Don’t expect me to give you an explanation.”
Jeff shrugged. “Of course not, I’ve given up trying to understand anything about this ship.” He finished his coffee and placed the cup on the ground beside him.
“I’ll go and wake Owl,” Joanne said.
Jeff waved a hand. “No need, I’ll do it.”
“OK,” she said and returned to the equipment sled, which formed the heart of the camp.
Jeff groaned as he stood up. Every bone in his body ached. As he walked over to Owl’s sleeping bag, he looked around at the depressing landscape. The light was extremely weak. The scene resembled a dreary November day on Terra at twilight—making it all the more odd to look up and see the sun in its zenith. It was uncanny, and he had to admit that he almost preferred the depressing darkness of the wide corridors of the alien ship.
Jeff bent down and shook Owl’s shoulder. “Wake up!” he said. “We have to get moving.”
There was no reaction from Owl and Jeff felt a shiver run down his spine. He moved his hand to his shipmate’s neck to feel his pulse and sighed with relief when he felt a heartbeat. But Owl’s skin was very cool.
“Owl! Wake up!” Jeff said loudly.
Finally, Owl scrunched his eyes before slowly opening them. He looked up in silence and Jeff felt another shiver run through his body. His shipmate’s eyes were glazed, as if he had a fever or taken drugs.
“Owl?” Jeff asked quietly. “Can you hear me?”
Several long seconds passed. “What is it?” Owl finally asked in a toneless voice.
“Are you OK? Do you feel all right?” Jeff wanted to know.
What had happened to the man?
He motioned to Joanne to come over to him, and she immediately sprang up.
“I don’t know,” Owl whispered.
“What do you mean?” Jeff asked.
“I don’t know if I feel all right,” Owl asked in a strange, throaty voice. “Should I feel OK?”