36 "Yes, sir," the other Officers snapped, and
departed.
37 The only other man that could fly stayed with North. "You stay at
the top of the shaft," he suggested, "hover between the levels. I want
to be able to remain in contact with everybody and I have a feeling
this rock is so dense it
will interfere with the communication circuits in our command coms."
38 "Yes sir," the Officer acknowledged, and as North descended he took
up his position at the top of the shaft. North descended fifty levels
before he finally hit the bottom.
39 "I'm going to be out of communications for a few minutes," North
announced, "I'm going to have a look inside."
40 Going inside, North found room after room filled with soil held in
by stone frames four feet high. Each soil bin was about eight feet wide
and two hundred feet long, and there were six in each room.
41 At the far end of each room was a shaft about three feet around at
the top right-hand corner. North had a suspicion what it was for. At
the far end of the tunnel was a hatchway leading off into what appeared
to be apartment complexes, each shelter being made up of about six
rooms, consisting of one big room in the front, four smaller ones, then
one in the rear that apparently held toilet facilities.
42 At the far end of the tunnel were several big rooms. Taking a wild
guess, North figured that one was used as a common cooking facility,
and the rest were probably operations offices and community areas. The
entire level was actually a self contained farming community.
43 North returned to the shaft, made it known he was safe, and flew up
to the next level. It was identical except the holes in the far wall
were a little bit further