Everywhere, too, there were shifting shapes, strange bodies—bodies long and bodies short, bodies thick and bodies thin. Some resembled life-forms that I knew. Others bore no resemblance to anything I'd ever seen before.
Yet headless or multi-headed, with visible sense organs or without, drab or vivid in coloration, every one of them appeared to have some work to do. Insectile, pulsing, they swarmed over every arc and angle of the room. Here they pulled at mobile strips of metal. There they maneuvered gem-bright crystal buds through maze-like tracks. Cone-things and cube-things, niches, projections—synchronously or erratically, they turned and twitched and throbbed and twisted.
It dawned on me, then: This chamber was the globe's control room. These unfamiliar forms were instruments, equipment.
The kind of equipment, unfortunately, that no human mind, uninstructed could fathom.
Letting go of the rod, my captor carried me across a parabolic wall, then down to a spot where misshapen curves and angles came together in such a pattern as to remind me of the warehouse room with the living statues on Rizal. I was released; allowed to sit.
Minutes dragged by. Then, suddenly, close at hand, another hatch opened. One of the Kel oozed through it, carrying Celeste.
In a flash, all my tensions were back. My palms began to sweat. I had trouble with my breathing.
Gracefully, the girl came close; sat down beside me. "Mark...."
I hesitated, trying not to let the ambivalence I felt show in my eyes. "Yes?"
"Mark, please...." Her hand rested lightly on my arm. "Look at me, Mark."