"Elevator?" Rudy whispered.
"Possible."
Several seconds after the hum was no longer audible, Matt said, "Let's go."
Matt in the lead, the group jumped from beam to beam. Minutes later they halted as the hum came and went again.
After five more minutes, Matt was convinced there was some kind of irregularity in the spacing of the beams above. When they finally reached the area, he felt more encouraged than he had been in more than a day. Set into the inside wall was something that had to be a door. They waited without speaking for a minute as the elevator hum rose and then faded.
"Maybe we're in business," Matt said.
The others gathered around on the nearby beams and looked. They each sat on a beam, their legs hooked together beneath the beam. Abby recorded video of the unintelligible markings on the door.
The door was octagonal, about two meters across. On four edges were octagonal handles.
"The size suggests that our captors are approximately as big as we are," Abby said. "That's good."
"Why's that good?" asked Bobby Joe.
"How would you want to try to establish communications with a flea or a whale?" she asked.
"Are we going through?" said Richard after a moment of silence.
"Yes, but cautiously. On the other side of the door might be atmosphere we can't breathe. There might be aliens coming down a transparent elevator every five minutes. There might be alarm bells going off."
Matt hesitated. "All right. We've heard the elevator pass by here a couple of times in the last ten or fifteen minutes. That's good and bad. Bad because it means we may have our first confrontation soon. Good because it means the elevator is in use often enough that if we use it, we have a chance of remaining undetected."
"Do you think the door really will sound an alarm?" Julie asked.
"My gut says no, mainly because the protection around the enclosure is pretty thorough. If we wind up getting split up, though, you know what to do. Rudy's second in command, followed by Richard."
"What about another atmosphere on the other side?" Rudy asked.
"We play safe. If this section contains breathable air, my guess is that the living quarters do, too, but again, we can't assume that. Bobby Joe, can you get out the analyzer?"
Bobby Joe brought out the gas analyzer and unwound the flexible tubing extending from it.
"All right," Matt said. "Let's try to open the door." He was closest, so he edged nearer and gripped one of the four handles. He turned it, and it rotated easily under his hand. He kept turning, and the knob kept turning without reaching a stop. He turned it the opposite direction until he was sure it was well past its starting position, and he still felt no resistance.
"This isn't encouraging," he said. He reached for another knob. It reacted the same way.
"I wonder if that means the door's been disconnected somehow," Rudy said. "Maybe it was just here when this ship was built, and now it serves no purpose."
"Possible," Matt said. "But I wouldn't do that aboard a human ship. Things like emergency exits don't get used all that often, but when there's an emergency, you want them to work. And you don't want people wasting valuable time trying to get through a dead end."
"Maybe they don't think like we do," Bobby Joe said.
"I think Bobby Joe's right," Abby said. "But that doesn't mean the door won't operate. Maybe they just operate doors differently than we do."
"All right," Matt said. "I'm open to discussion."
Abby said, "For starters, there are four handles instead of one. Maybe that means they have to be turned in sequence, or simultaneously."
"What sequence?"
"I don't know. With four handles there are only so many possibilities. Since up and down tend to get confused in space, my guess is that they rely on something that doesn't depend on orientation, other than facing the door."
"So that would be clockwise or counterclockwise?"
"Or some pattern, like a combination that's independent of the actual starting point?"
"Seems reasonable," Abby said.
"They spent several minutes trying combinations. Nothing worked.
"Well, Abby?" Matt said.
Abby was silent for a moment. "Maybe," she said slowly, "maybe you have to turn all four knobs simultaneously."
Matt looked back at the knobs. "That's pretty demanding for an emergency exit. You're assuming they require the buddy system? Two people working together?"
"Not necessarily. The people who built this ship might have more limbs than we do. And this might not be an emergency exit. It might just be a door that they wanted to make difficult to open accidentally."
Matt thought about that a moment. "Rudy, can you give me a hand?"
Rudy moved from beam to beam until he was on the beam adjacent to Matt. "Okay, I'm ready." Matt grabbed the two handles farthest from Rudy. "Can you reach those other two?"
Rudy locked his ankles underneath the beam and leaned out into space. He was just able to reach the two handles.
"All right," Matt said. "Turn them clockwise." He did the same. Nothing. They tried counterclockwise. Nothing.
Suddenly Matt had an image of standing at a sink and simultaneously turning on a hot and a cold water tap. "Turn the one in your right hand clockwise, and the one in your left counterclockwise." He did the same.
A muted click sounded from somewhere inside the door.
#
Dorine Underwood stopped at the office door and leaned in. "Anything hot, Tim?"
Tim Adjmati looked up from sorting mail, his black eyes reflecting pinpoints of light from the overhead lamp. "Nothing so far, but one marked personal." He was building three stacks of opened mail that Dorine really wasn't keen on starting yet.
The last three envelopes marked personal that Dorine had received were all from Raphael. He never gave her cards at home. Instead, he had liked to think of Dorine and her routine suddenly interrupted by a smile.
From the door she could see the small package that Tim pointed at. It was a little larger than a book, wrapped in brown paper and heavily taped.
"There's nothing personal in that stack," Dorine said. She tried to keep the sadness out of her voice. Besides the image she had to maintain, she didn't want anyone feeling sorry for her.
Tim nodded.
"I'll stop back in a couple of minutes on my way back from Lamar's office and grab anything that looks hot."
"Yes, ma'am."
Lamar wasn't in his office when Dorine got there, so she found a piece of scratch paper and left a note. She could have used the electronic mail system, but trips to various offices constituted almost all the exercise she was getting lately.
She turned back down the hall toward Tim. She had covered about half the distance between the two offices when the building suddenly shook and a deafening blast started her ears ringing. A discharge of papers and wood splinters and smoke exploded from the office Tim had occupied.
Dorine stumbled, then regained her balance. She moved closer. The doorframe was bent and splintered. On the wall across from the office was a darkened surface roughly the same shape as the doorway. The air was thick with smoke and swirling paper fragments.
Dorine took a glance through the doorway and sank to her knees, oblivious to the sounds of approaching people.
#
"All right," Matt breathed. The unlocked door stayed in position. He pushed gently on it, and it gave. Good. At least they had no pressure differential to deal with. "Bobby Joe, hand me the nozzle."
Bobby Joe tossed the loose end of the tubing connected to the gas analyzer. Matt caught it. With it held in his left hand, he unsnapped his pistol and removed it from his holster. Next to him, Rudy also readied his weapon.
Matt pushed the tube toward the thin crack that had opened on the left edge of the door. Bobby Joe started the pump, drawing gas into the analyzer. The sound felt far too loud.
Soon Bobby Joe said softly, "It's safe."
Matt stood up on the beam. With his free hand, he unsnapped the rope from his belt. He pushed the edge of the door with his foot, and it pivoted inward. Light flooded into the cavity between the walls, and Matt's eyes adjusted.
Matt crouched and moved through the door and into the empty room beyond. He stayed low. In front of him was a short wall, maybe a meter tall, topped with a clear observation panel, through which he could see distant tubes running from the chamber ceiling down toward bubbled cities.
To his immediate right was a solid wall about three meters tall and about three meters to a corner. He moved to the 135–degree corner and peered around. The other half of the observation deck was identical, except that what seemed to be an elevator door broke the surface of the wall. Set into the outer wall beyond the elevator was another door like the one he had just come through. The matching door had the same pattern of four handles, two on top, two on the bottom. It bore identical legends, meaningless to Matt.
Matt moved back to the doorway. Quietly he said, "Come on out, but stay low."
Moments later all six team members crouched in the observation chamber. Matt pushed the door shut with a soft snap, and with Rudy's help made sure they could open it again. Finally Matt closed it again, on the off chance that some status light might attract attention.
"God, this place is big," Bobby Joe said softly.
Matt peered over the low wall, through the bottom of the transparent surface. They were high enough to easily make out the octagonal shape of the enormous gray floor far below. More than a dozen strange cities sat under individual clear domes. Spires in a city near the far wall reached almost as high as they were now. From this distance some of the cities resembled elaborate old–fashioned paperweights. Life–support hoses ran from numerous ceiling ports down to sides of the bubbles. In one of the nearest domes, a huge irregular building with parapets slowly rotated.
"I don't see Manhattan," Julie said.
"It's not down there," Rudy said. "We're turned around because of the gravity switch. We're looking at what's underneath the plain we tunneled into. If we'd known, we could have tunneled right through and come up on the other side of the world."
"Elevator," Richard said.
"Quick," Matt said. He pointed toward the side of the observation deck concealed from the elevator door.
Everyone moved quickly and quietly. They waited thirty seconds, but never heard the hum they had heard before.
"Maybe it was my imagination," Richard said finally. "Maybe my nerves are a little tight."
"All right," Matt said. "We're all a little jumpy. No harm done."
Back at the observation window, Julie used her minivid as she said, "You're saying these people have built a huge pancake? We're looking at one side, and the other side looks just like it?"
"Exactly," Rudy said. "Except that this side looks less populated."
Richard had dug out binoculars from his backpack. "I can't see any windows near the other elevator shafts."
Matt said, "So maybe this is one–way material?"
"Makes sense," Abby said. "These people haven't shown themselves to anyone that we know of. That would be consistent with them wanting to keep it that way." She turned to use her minivid on the legends on the doors.
Rudy looked up. "Those small circles on the ceiling could be observation ports, too. Maybe the elevators are mainly being used by people who want to get from one side to the other, rather than by people who may stop on the way."
"Interesting theory," Matt said, "but I don't know that we can count on it."
In the silence, Julie, who had been looking at cities through her minivid telephoto, said, "The city by the right wall on the right looks vaguely like an old castle. I guess they didn't just take people from high–tech worlds."
"True. They took us, didn't they?" said Bobby Joe.
"All right," said Matt. "We need to get out of here. The basic question is whether to try the elevator or go back to crawling between the walls. I'm for the elevator. Anyone have a good reason why we shouldn't try it?"
No one spoke.
"All right." Matt drew his pistol again. "Let's do it."
The elevator door was octagonal, about three meters from top to bottom and from side to side, with a single pull handle on the left. Next to the handle was a set of four buttons in a vertical line. The inner two were circles. The top and bottom were ellipses aligned so the long axis was vertical.
"Any guesses as to what the controls do?" Matt said. He tugged lightly on the elevator door handle, but it didn't budge.
The silence lasted several seconds. Abby said, "Beyond the obvious, that maybe the top pair says we want to go up and the bottom pair says we want to go down, I don't know."
Rudy said, "The ovals suggest speed to me. Maybe the circles are the regular up and down buttons and using the ellipses says you're in a hurry and you want an express."
Matt said, "Or maybe the circles take you to the top of the chamber and the ellipses take you to the floor or floors beyond that." He reached forward and pushed the bottom button.
A bright line formed around the perimeter of the ellipse, and it began to blink. "Why down instead of up?" asked Rudy.
"This side is less built up than the side Manhattan is on. I'm just guessing that means the bridge is on the Manhattan side. I figure the odds are no worse than fifty–fifty." Matt looked at the five other faces around him. "I want everyone armed when the door opens, but be careful. Don't shoot unless it's absolutely necessary to protect yourself or to prevent one of our captors from escaping."
Moments later the blinking line around the ellipse stayed on steady.
"Could mean we'll have company," Abby said. "Or it could mean the elevator has started on its way here."
As they watched the indicator, the bright line around the outside grew wider as the interior dark ellipse shrank.
"That's got to mean it's getting closer," Abby said.
"Why only one handle here and four on the other door?" Matt asked.
"My guess is the other door isn't an everyday access door the way this one might be. They didn't want anyone accidentally opening it."
By the time the dark ellipse had nearly vanished, Matt heard the hum of an approaching elevator. Seconds later, the dark spot vanished as the oval indicator completely filled with light. As the hum died, the ellipse started to blink, and a click sounded from the elevator.
Matt gripped the handle with his left hand and aimed his pistol into the elevator. He yanked on the elevator door, and it swung open smoothly.
The interior was empty.
Behind Matt, Julie said, "Thank God."
The interior fit all six of them comfortably. It seemed more like the interior of a subway car than a normal elevator, though, because it was ringed with several rows of handles, one at eye level, one at chest level, and one at waist level.
Matt got in last and pulled the door closed. An iris closed, concealing the unreadable markings on the inside of the door, and just as a red circle began to glow next to the entry, the elevator lurched into free fall and Matt grabbed a handle with one hand.
"Oh, God," Julie said softly.
After a few seconds of free fall, Rudy said, "We're turning. The elevator is rotating."
Matt realized he was right. Over a period of about ten seconds, it seemed the elevator turned end for end, still in free fall. Seconds later, he felt a gentle nudge of gravity as the elevator accelerated slightly.
A couple of minutes passed as the elevator noises rose in pitch and Matt imagined them whipping past stop after stop. Gravity began to grow stronger.
Rudy said, "Either we're speeding up more, or we passed the zero–gee midpoint, and what we're feeling is additional gravity instead of acceleration."
They hurtled through the elevator shaft, the elevator shuddering perceptibly, but the apparent gravity didn't increase past what they had been used to for their days aboard the ship.
Bobby Joe said, "They really should lea
ve some airsick bags in here."
Matt glanced over his shoulder, and he caught Abby's gaze. He looked at her for a long moment without speaking. She seemed worried, which was natural, but she also gave him a nervous smile that for an instant cut through all his fears and made him wish this mission were long in the past.
The pull of gravity seemed to lessen, and the vibrations began to drop in pitch.
"We're getting ready to stop," Richard said.
The elevator cage slowed more and more, finally coming to a complete stop. The iris dilated and exposed the interior of a different door with still different unreadable markings. Matt readied his gun. "On your toes, folks."
He pushed open the door.
Matt left the elevator quickly. "We got lucky. I don't see anyone around. Let's get out of here pronto."
"Let's move," Matt said. He made sure everyone was behind him as he started moving toward a trio of large cylinders about fifty meters away. From near the elevator door, a track–bed with a single wide rail reached into the distance in the direction of the center of the ship. Two more monorails vanished in the distance along the walls. The ceiling here was maybe fifty meters high, and from the open space all around, Matt could believe this level was just as wide as the city chamber below their feet. Far in the distance the floor and ceiling converged along perspective lines, and Matt was unsure if they'd be able to see all the way across the 100–kilometer span if the ceiling was only a half–percent of that distance or an even smaller fraction. With the current tension, he didn't care too much about stopping and doing the math.
At seemingly random locations ahead were tall and bulky equipment housings, some with unrecognizable machinery exposed, like one that could have been a huge oil–derrick as visualized by someone on a bad drug trip. Others were simple boxes or upright cylinders. The air was filled with the soft sound of gas being expelled, as though a thousand tire pumps were running just on the threshold of hearing. No individual lights showed anywhere. Instead, the ceiling emitted a uniform yellow–green light.
They reached the cover of the trio of cylinders without hearing the sounds of discovery. Of course Matt didn't know if they'd even be able to hear the aliens' voices. Perhaps they were telepaths like the tree dwellers, or they could have bat–like voices pitched high enough to be inaudible, or they used something other than sound.
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