Jandro opened his lips hesitantly as if to speak, then suddenly closed them tightly and a new and dreadful expression came upon his face. Underwood was mystified, but dismissed the puzzle from his mind.
His eyes were upon the great structure that loomed just ahead. He soared up around it. Nowhere were there windows or other openings in the heights of the vast, featureless walls.
He dropped back to ground level and found his companions at the edge of the enormous ramp leading down into the depths beneath the building.
He noticed there were only four of them. "Where did Jandro go?"
Terry glanced quickly about. "I thought he was with you."
"No. He probably went after something that looked familiar to him. I guess he can't get lost. The ship is obvious enough out there in the center of the field. Shall we see what's down here?"
Dreyer pointed toward a track leading from the depths. "It's possible this is an underground hangar for their vessels, perhaps an embarkation station, from which the ships were towed to the takeoff area."
Underwood touched the controls of his scooter and led the way down the decline, a scant few feet above its surface. In the field illuminated by the spotlight of the scooter, he could see that the opening at the bottom was close to a hundred and fifty feet in diameter.