CHAPTER 5
“What are they?” Tarkos asked, when the three of them stepped out of the long hallway that formed the spoke. They stopped, and the floor stopped moving also, letting them stand side by side. The black walls of the central hub rose toward huge, twin lights far overhead, one blue, one white. Doors ringed the circumference, but only the large doorways to the three spokes stood open. And, just as the drone telemetry had reported, the only things in the towering room were two clear, crystal cylinders, each about as tall as a human.
Bria, Tarkos, and Eydis began to walk toward the cylinders. The floor beneath them did not move; they crossed the distance under their own power.
“Look,” Bria said, sending Tarkos an indicator for one of the streams of data coming in. The drones ha
