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room. There was a long table finished in a brown substance with random stripe
patterning that neither Ewen or Jenine could identify. Around the table were
ten swivel chairs. In one corner was a simple overhead projection device on a
trolley. In the centre of the table were two glass jugs standing on a metal
plate whose purpose they could only guess at.
"One thing," said Ewen. "We're no longer in Arama."
"How do you know?"
"A triumph of perception over your total lack of observation, dearest
one. No picture of the emperor."
The concept of somewhere that wasn't Arama was difficult to grasp, but
the evidence, or rather, lack of it, was irrefutable.
Ewen stood the discharge tube on the table and turned down the
brilliance. Used economically they could provide light for fifty-hours. There
were two more tubes in the holdall but once they were exhausted, they would be
in total darkness.
"Let's explore the next room," Jenine suggested.
"No - we're got to do this scientifically," said Ewen. "We have to map
this place one step at a time, otherwise we'll get hopelessly lost."
He sat in one of the swivel chairs, and unpacked his datapad and the
seismographs from the holdall. Jenine sat beside him. From the maps of Arama
they worked out roughly where they were, but they were too far from Keltro for
this strange area they were in to show up on their seismographs. He cleared
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the datapad's screen and began making a sketch plan of the switch room,
drawing it in relation to the chord- metro tunnel. He added rough dimensions.
Once satisfied with his handiwork, he reduced the plan to a small area in the
corner of the screen so that the drawing could be updated.
Jenine watched while he worked, offering an occasional suggestion. Her
fingertips slid idly back and forth over the table's surface as they talked.
She liked the warm touch of the strange material. It seemed to be hard but was
in fact quite soft because she could make faint marks on it with her
thumbnail. She was used to furniture that was impossible to mark. She
mentioned the fact to Ewen, but he was now intent on a side elevation sketch
that showed heights. He dimensioned the height of the switch room and the
estimated height of the stairs while Jenine's fingers toyed with a touch
control at the side of the metal plate in the centre of the table. The touch
control glowed softly. She said nothing, wondering what would happen.
"Right," said Ewen, checking his measurements against the seismographs.
"We're ten percent nearer the nothingness than we were in the tunnel."
Jenine chuckled. "We can't go on calling it the nothingness, Ewen. Let's
call it the blue dome."
Ewen looked doubtful and grinned. "Why not? Okay - the blue dome it is."
He went back to work on his drawing.
Jenine's calf brushed against something on the floor. At first she
thought it was a leg of the table. She glanced down. A waste bin. She was
about to mention her find to Ewen when he suddenly froze.
"Did you hear that?"
"What?"
"Shhh!"
They both heard the creaking noise. It was coming from the metal plate.
Ewen reached out a hand, touched the plate, and snatched it away. "Ouch! It's
hot!" He sucked his fingertips and glared at the plate.
Jenine touched the control and the light went out. "My fault. I switched
it on."
"Well you should leave things alone until we know what they're for!"
"If we leave things alone, we'll never discover what they're for!" Jenine
retorted.
"So what is it for then?"
Jenine lifted up one of the jugs. There was a circle etched into the
plate's surface, obviously to indicate the position the jug should occupy. She
held her hand above the circle, palm down, and looked at Ewen in surprise.
"It's not just hot, it's very hot."
"I know that," Ewen snapped, aggrieved, still sucking his fingers. "But
what's it for?"
"For heating whatever goes in the jug, of course. I would've thought that
was obvious, but I'm not the lateral thinker."
Ewen glanced around the room. "This is obviously some sort of conference
or meeting room. So why carry out industrial work in here?"
"Perhaps it's for making drinks?"
Ewen knew from his 4th year studies that Arama's soft drink production [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]