Breathing hard, Kane leaned forward and swept the room with a searching gaze. Aside from the circulation fans, ductwork and condensers, he saw three huge, horizontally mounted steel tanks in a far corner. The sym-bol for oxygen was stenciled in black on their dull surfaces. A network of pipes stretched out from the ends of the tanks, feeding into small, box-shaped modules at the bases of the floor fans. Glass meters and valves were attached to the pipes at regular intervals.
Within a chain-link-fenced enclosure rested a metal-walled disk, about eight feet in diameter and three feet thick. The ribbed top consisted of a small, round superstructure of raised flanges surrounding a recessed opening.
On the far side of the disk protruded a sealed yellow cylinder about two feet long and one foot in diameter. The warning painted on it in red letters read Contents Under PressureThorium Chrylon.
It wasn’t until he leaned farther out of the shaft that Kane saw the plastic sign bolted to the gate of the enclosure. In blocky blue letters, it read Grav-Stator. Only Authorized Maintenance Personnel Permitted. Must Have C-Class License And Committee-Approved Work Order To Enter.
Looking below the duct, he saw the fan frame had lodged between a pair of pipes, breaking the glass faces of several pressure gauges but apparently causing no other damage. The drop was only ten feet, so he backed out of the shaft, clung to the edge for a moment, then dropped with flexed knees to the floor.
Kane didn’t worry about tripping an intruder-detection system or alerting a guard. The racket he had made kicking loose the fan would have resulted in that. Still, he scanned the walls and ceiling for concealed spy-eyes and found none.
He saw the door hatch directly opposite the big oxygen tanks. He made his way across the room to them, studying the different valves, gauges and pressure switches attached to the pipes. He tried to differentiate between the intake and outflow lines. Kane knew he wasn’t much of a technician, but he figured the trans-adapts weren’t, either. The Cydonia Compound humans had obviously educated them to carry out a diversity of maintenance tasks, and monitoring oxygen content, flow and quality was probably the primary one.
Kane located an L-shaped lever beneath a large, numbered meter. A straight line divided into three color bands, yellow, orange and red, crossed its face. The needle held steady at midyellow.
Grasping the lever, he nudged it toward the right. The needle slowly crept toward the orange band. He waited for a moment, breathing deeply. Finally he caught a faint whiff of an odor reminiscent of ozone. He threw the handle to the far end of the red band and stepped back.
A high hissing emanated from the pipe to which the meter was attached. Within seconds, the metallic odor of pure, undiluted oxygen tickled his nostrils, stimulating the urge to sneeze.
As he turned away, a multipaged chart hanging on the wall near the hatch caught his eyes. He went to it and thumbed through the pages quickly, feeling a rush of elation. Like the blueprints in the manual, the chart displayed schematics of the compound, designating them by letters of the alphabet.
Unlike the manual, the pages bore handwritten descriptions of all the domes, even delineating separate chambers. Within a half minute of serious study, he realized he was in Dome V, only one dome away from X. His guess they were in Dome U wasn’t that far off the mark. Judging by the description, the V habitat was primarily a community center, with dining halls, lounges and a medical facility. The facility was located only a few dozen yards down the tunnel from the environmental station.
Dome X had evidently been devoted to administrative duties, since a council chamber, a communications command post and various offices were clearly marked. However, he saw no reference to a mat-trans unit, but he wasn’t surprised or dismayed. Sindri had implied the Committee of One Hundred kept its existence a secret.
After memorizing the shortest route to Dome X, Kane walked to the fenced enclosure. The gate didn’t have a lock, so he stepped inside. The machine on the floor bore a resemblance to the nuclear generators in Cerberus, but one laid on its side. Circling it, he eyed the control switches studding its surface. Indicators were labeled with the words Rotational Rate Cycle, EPS Channel and Superconductor Stator. A small LED flashed 0.8G.
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