Chapter 14

The edge of this plate is, in fact, a wall. A black wall that turns transparent, like glass, when GULL is pressing her palms against it. “Everyone, press your palms against the wall. Hurry!”

Day allows the little humans to walk free on the plate and, yes, to press their palms against the wall, as instructed. While she does the same.

The view, coming clear from the opposite side, is formidable. Other plates, in various shapes, together with bars and cubes and balls, some connected, some independent, are spinning and sliding, diving and rising, some slow, some fast. An extravaganza of iron. A show of deafening silence. Then a sudden, and terrible, thud. Followed by more silence.

“What was that?”

“The machine inside the moon.”

“I got that. Not the silent moving parts I’m asking about. What was the intriguing thud?”

“Run your visual memory and slow it down at 1/45 speed rate. Can you do that?”

“Just did. Noticed a black crevice. Horizontal slices, perfectly aligned. Oh wait, some are thirty-six meters long, others are thirty-four. What are these segments?”

“Graves. This is the crypt of Prior Earth, where all the bodies are stored.”

“Ours included?”

“Yours included.”