“We’ve found a way in!” She waved to Castle, Green, and Shorty, who were still standing in front of the big gate.
Jeff let the others pass, and then took a last look at the vast cavity they were about to leave behind. They would be passing through one more on their way to the center of the ship, and Jeff wondered if the same kind of scenery awaited them. They would find out soon enough. Tomorrow, hopefully. They had another thirty miles to cover.
“Are you coming, or do you want to carry on staring into space?” Castle asked, holding the door open for Jeff.
Jeff gave a start and turned around. Somehow it was easy to get lost in thought down here. He put it down to the weak light and gloomy atmosphere. He tried to refocus and pulled the door shut behind him.
Joanne had already switched on her flashlight. Jeff wasn’t surprised to find they were in another airlock. It was small and only just big enough for the six remaining members of the team and their equipment sled. Suddenly there was a hissing noise, which quickly died away. No need for a big pressure equalization here, then. But unlike the airlock through which they had entered the cavity, this one was at ground level.
Joanne easily swung open the hatch at the far end of the airlock and stepped through the opening. Jeff was the last to enter the corridor that lay on the other side. It was no more than forty feet long. At the end of the corridor was a door, and on the side wall next to it, another door. Without waiting for an order from Jeff, Joanne headed toward them. There was nowhere else to go, in any case.
When Joanne reached the end of the corridor, she pushed on the square next to the door, but it didn’t open.
Castle came up beside her and rapped his fist against it. There was a loud clanking noise, but it still didn’t budge. “I think the big airlock is behind this door—the one on the other side of the big gate that we couldn’t open out in the cavity.”
Jeff hoped the other door in the corridor would open. Castle must have had the same thought, and pressed on the square. The door slid upward with a loud hissing noise.
Warily, Castle stepped through the opening and shone his flashlight around the room. Jeff followed him.
“This is interesting,” Shorty said, coming up behind him.
Jeff looked up and nodded. Gray-brown rock face stretched up in every direction. Although the whole space was probably as big as a sports stadium, Jeff felt like he was in a chimney. Castle pointed his flashlight upward, but the beam of light petered out some way above them. The room must be several miles high. Most bizarre of all were the warm drops falling on his face.
“Is this some kind of tropical shower?” Mac asked.
Jeff stepped up to the rock face and ran his hand over the rough surface, which was completely wet. He looked up again, but closed his eyes instinctively against the drops of water.
“I think the room is so high, the humidity in the thinner air higher up is condensing,” Castle mused.
“Rain?” Joanne asked incredulously.
Castle nodded.
“Why did they even go to the effort of building cliffs in the cavity and parts of the interior of the ship? Just so they would feel at home?” Shorty wondered.
“I reckon this ship used to be an asteroid,” said Green, who had been very quiet over the last few days.
“What makes you say that?” Jeff asked.
“I think the aliens took an asteroid or minor planet with a high level of iron from their system, and used that iron to help build the ship. Maybe some original parts of the asteroid were left over and simply incorporated into the structure.”
Castle shook his head. “Why would they do that? This much rock is heavy and would have slowed them down.”
“Maybe they wanted to take along a little bit of home,” Green shrugged.
“Can we get out of this damn rain already?” Mac asked and started marching over to one of the doors on the other side of the chamber.
“No,” Joanne said. “That way.” She pointed to another door. Mac grunted and changed direction. He reached the door, but waited for the others to join him before pressing the square. It slid upward.
On the other side was a huge hall, but instead of rock, the walls here were made of a gray-blue metal. And again, the ceiling was so high it was barely visible. Jeff turned on his headlamp and let the cone of light glide along the wall. The beam didn’t reach far enough to light up the other end of the room. He shook himself. The dimensions inside this ship were beyond comprehension. Somewhere far in the distance shone a faint, red light.
“Is that another one of those cavitys?” Mac asked.
Joanne looked at her handheld and shook her head. “It wasn’t on the hologram, that’s for sure. It can’t have a diameter of more than a few miles, or else I’d be able to see it on the map.”
“Which way now?” Jeff asked.
Joanne turned in a slow circle as she looked down at her handheld, then stopped abruptly and pointed forward. “This way. After about half a mile the corridor should branch off and go down.
“Down?” Castle asked.
“I presume the vector of gravity will change again,” she said.
The red light was coming from exactly the direction they were about to take. Jeff took a deep breath and set off. “Come on, let’s go.”
Joanne, Green, and Castle trudged after him. Shorty and Mac brought up the rear with the equipment sled. They made their way through the spooky hall in silence.
Gradually, the red light grew stronger and they could see it shining a few feet above the ground. Beneath it was a platform covered in yellow and grey stripes and surrounded by a low railing. It was big enough that they could all fit on it. Attached to the middle of the railing was a narrow box with a square. It was similar to the elevator that had taken them down to the bottom of the cavity.
“No gravity vector change here,” Castle said laconically. “Just an ordinary elevator.”
“What are we doing?” Shorty asked.
Mac snorted. “What kind of a dumbass question is that? Our commander is sending us down into the abyss.”
“Quit complaining. If the hologram is right, this will take us straight to the next cavity,” Joanne retorted. “Would you rather have walked?”
Mac waved off her comment and helped Shorty push the equipment sled onto the platform.
Jeff was standing a few feet in front of the elevator and regarding it critically. Could a simple construction like that really take them down sixty miles? He suddenly felt a wave of nausea wash over him, and an inner voice was whispering to him not to get into the elevator and travel into the depths.
“Jeff?” Joanne asked. “Everything OK?”
He rubbed his chin. “I don’t like this. The elevator I mean. We shouldn’t use it.”
“I don’t want to get in that thing, either,” Castle agreed.
“If it gets stuck in the shaft going down, we’re dead meat,” Mac added.
“Let’s look for another way down,” Shorty suggested.
“Is there another way?” Jeff asked, turning to Joanne.
She swayed her head from side to side uncertainly while jabbing at her handheld. “A few miles further on there seems to be a corridor that also leads down. Looks a lot like the wide corridor we came down at the beginning.”
Jeff glanced at the screen and nodded. “We’ll use the corridor, even if it means more walking.”
“What’s that?”
Jeff looked up. Castle was standing on the edge of the platform and pointing into the darkness. Jeff looked in the direction he was indicating but couldn’t see anything. “What are you talking about? What do you see?”
“Turn off your lights,” Castle suddenly hissed.
Jeff and Joanne quickly switched off their headlamps. Now only the faint red light illuminated the platform.