The chamber was a sphere.
Caleb had not expected that. The corridor had been concrete on six sides, lead-lined, copper-mesh-sheathed. He had walked sixty-three meters of right angles and assumed the room would continue them. The room did not.
The chamber was a sphere.
Twelve meters in diameter. Poured of a material that was not concrete and was not stone, gray with veins of something darker running through it in a pattern that looked random until Caleb let his eyes unfocus and saw it was not random. The veins were lines of force. They converged at twelve points around the circumference of the sphere. Twelve small recesses, each the size of a hand.
The marks.
Marcus walked to the center.
There was a small raised platform at the center of the sphere. Not stone. Something else. A black disc, two meters across, six inches high. The seal.
He set the working dampener case at its edge. He did not open it. He did not look at it.
He said: "Take your positions."
