Dusts of Avalon - Beastwithin.org

IV. A R S Sey looked at the space station. Even Daleworth had to concede that thedeliberate, careful design of the station didn't agree with the notions that this wasPlanner work; Planners were more known for relatively simple and functionalityorientedspaceship designs for motherships that could deploy a terrifying metallicrain of robots on distant worlds on a moment's notice, and no one had ever seena cra that would look so intricate and detailed. Planners valued simplicity, verysimple geometric shapes; the ships just didn't look defensible. Planners oen usedadvanced electromagnetic shielding, and absence of su in this space station waseither a sign that this was not a Planner cra, or that it was very cunning trap.And the more the crew looked, the trap theory seemed less and less likely.e main keep itself was, like the walls surrounding it, octagonal, but as theexplorers entered its interior, they saw an anteamber and a circular corridorwith side ambers — their scale and their doorways seemingly built for giants.Ea door was almost as big as the gateway outside, about meters tall and wide. Even Daleworth's imagination started to race aer she heard Dr. Grovepath'sthoughts: this seemed like a castle in the skies, occupied by giants of thefairytales. She just hoped their lile beanstalk was kept in good working order ifthey needed to evacuate the giant's castle.As they entered the great amber within the big circular corridor, they sawmore things that reminded them of fortresses.“is really is a damn castle, ma'am”, Fairwind said.“Fine, I'll eat my words”, Daleworth said. “I'll be ready to call this a castle.”e beams of light from the assault rifles pointed up shone through the darkness,aenuating to the majestic height of the interior amber, the weak beamsunable to rea the ceiling, barely able to light the far side of the amber as itwas.“Oh my. I wonder how huge this is?” Dr. Grovepath said. “ meters? Atleast meters.”“You've got a laser rangefinder in the helmet”, Daleworth said. “Choose ArtilleryFire Control tools through the command interface, followed by Rangefinder.”“Right, uh…” Dr. Grovepath struggled a lile bit with the interface; he hadgiven up trying to let the mind-maine interface to aune to his brain signals,and the buons in the gloves, whi were not custom made for him, were in veryinconvenient spots. He finally started up the rangefinder, and looked up. “meters. ite large amber, indeed!”“And you needed minutes to figure that out, doctor”, Daleworth said withsome clear amusement.“Point taken, lieutenant…”But the amber was, indeed, downright majestic in its glory that sprawledin the heights. ey could see the walls definitely had some castle-like look, withgreat banners hanging from them, and as far as they could see, the banners also