"Here," Rodney said, as they came up to him, out of breath. "Here. See? Right here."
Three flashlights centered on a dark, metal disk raised a foot or more from the floor.
"Well, they had hands." With his torch Wass indicated a small wheel of the same metal as everything else in the city, set beside the disk.
From its design Martin assumed that the disk was meant to be grasped and turned. He wondered what precisely they were standing over.
"Well, Skipper, are you going to do the honors?"
Martin kneeled, grasped the wheel. It turned easily—almost too easily—rotating the disk as it turned.
Suddenly, without a sound, the disk rose, like a hatch, on a concealed hinge.
The three men, clad in their suits and helmets, grouped around the six-foot opening, shining their torches down into the thing that drifted and eddied directly beneath them.
Rodney's sudden grip on Martin's wrist nearly shattered the bone. "Martin! It's all alive! It's moving!"
Martin hesitated long enough for a coil to move sinuously up toward the opening. Then he spun the wheel and the hatch slammed down.