Dell's Journey

Chapter 33: A Day In The Dome

At the point furthest from them, the watchers could

see something happening. The glowing realm of the white

belt of lights was expanding. The birds continued their

noise, and at last the early morning adventurers began to

make out tiny flitting shapes as they performed their wild

acrobatics.

The two viewers were drawn here and there by the new

things their eyes began to ascertain, and they narrated

their experiences to each other with,

"Ah! The ground looks so clean and flat there," and

"Those patches there, up above –I think those are where I

picked the flowers," and, "The white lights are hardly

noticeable anymore," and "My goodness, it's all one huge

dome isn't it? Look!"

What they beheld was this: something like an indoor

arena, with huge stone pillars reaching up the curved sides

at regular intervals, each with one of the white lights at

its base. The pillars climbed until they met at the apex

of the roof, which was at least several hundred feet above

the floor. Thus, the vast room was like one half of a

sphere. The two were perched upon the edge of the rocky

floor, close to the coal-black walls that had led them into

this unlikely realm. Further inside was a circular field,

about a thousand yards wide, should one try to walk

straight across. They felt minuscule, dwarfed by the

proportions of the setting.

With open mouths they perceived the source of the

indoor sunlight: a blinding golden-white orb, slowly rising

upward from the far edge of the ring. It now appeared that

the tangles of pipes, wires and ventilator shafts they'd

seen in the walls close to their view were a prominent

feature on all the walls. They dove into the rocks,

protruded out of the pillars, snaking their way in, out,

and around the interior on their way to somewhere. It was

like they were inside the head of some giant robot, and

these were its circuits, veins, and arteries. The

mechanical version of Apollo's fiery chariot continued its

course up the far reaches of the dome, now bathing the

entire world in warm, dazzling light. About two hundred

feet up, the mess of electro-mechanical pipelines ended or

hid themselves underneath the fields of green, which were

probably the most unlikely of the underground fixtures.

These fields were laid out in an orderly fashion. Rows of

shrubs formed one perfect rhombus, only to be succeeded by