If I’d been hoping to see what was inside, I’d have been disappointed. I hadn’t expected to see anything more than an airlock, but there was no airlock here.

Instead, what appeared to be glass with a hazy golden sheen blocked our view of the inside. Between experience with alien technology and years of consuming science fiction, I felt sure it wasn’t glass.

“Walk through the golden force field,” Rachel told us over the comms. “There’s an atmosphere in there. The Artificers usually set it to be similar to the atmosphere of the nearest planet with intelligent life, but it might have adjusted to the Abominators’ preferences. Those weren’t always breathable.”

My implant supplied the knowledge that the Abominators could adjust to a wide range of environmental conditions, much wider than unmodified humans.

Jaclyn and I stepped through first.

With my first glance around the room, I understood what Rachel meant when she said that the Artificers designed with the intent of enticing people.

We’d walked into a garden. Water flowed through a stream that wound across the room, zigzagging through dark brown soil. Bees buzzed their way from flower to flower, collecting pollen. At least that’s what they’d be doing if they were real bees as opposed to cleverly designed copies. Dragonflies flew around the river.

I didn’t recognize every insect, but I didn’t recognize every insect on Earth. So, the ones I’d never seen before didn’t have to have come from other worlds.

I looked over at her, “I didn’t expect to see a garden. I was imagining directly usable technology and I don’t know, maybe an owner’s manual along with it.”

“That’s what you’re seeing,” Rachel said. “Imagine us leaving Earth and finding this place after years of painstaking work and a two-year flight. We’re desperate to figure out how to colonize another world, maybe even Mars and we’ve got a working biosphere here. What do you want to bet there are plans for how to terraform the planet inside?”

Taking another glance around the place, I said, “Nothing. You’ve seen this before?”

Rachel shrugged, grimaced, and replied, “In all except one of the sites I visited. It’s what they do with young species. I’m not sure how it’s supposed to go wrong here, but it will and it’s different for different species. The Ghosts told me about one time when it allowed a species to colonize its solar system so quickly that it didn’t have the resources to keep up with the growth. The whole species went extinct. There was another where the terraforming machines tested diseases on the population until it created one that couldn’t be stopped. There are more.”

Stopping to stare at her, Jaclyn asked, “How would they get anyone to copy that technology and spread it?”

Throwing up her hands, Rachel said, “I don’t know. I’m repeating what I was told.”

“I suppose if you don’t understand how something works and copy it perfectly,” I said, giving the room another look. “Any idea where to go next?”

Rachel shook her head, “They all look different. If you didn’t know what to look for, you wouldn’t recognize they were made by the same people.”

“Well,” Marcus said, “at least in that direction I don’t see any greenery.”

He waved his hand toward a hallway on the far side of the room. The greenery appeared to end at the entrance. In the other directions, I could only see grass, soil, and bushes.

“True,” I said, “it’s worth trying.”

To Rachel, I asked, “Is it safe to try to use ‘Artificer vision’ or would that attract attention in here?”

She frowned, “You might be safer if you don’t. The Ghosts told me not to try it sometimes. They told me to use it in others. I don’t know why it was okay sometimes and why it wasn’t when it wasn’t.”

“I’d have thought it would be safe,” I said, “but I guess if the Destroy faction sees the Ghosts or the Live faction as enemies, they might boobytrap the place and use that as a trigger.”

Rachel glanced toward the hallway, “I know Destroy saw us as enemies. I wouldn’t put it past them.”

Cassie checked behind us, her gun ready, “My gun isn’t sensing Abominator networks of any kind. It says this place is a black hole for Abominator tech. We should have brought Blue. She could have seen something.”

“Let’s keep on walking to the hallway,” Jaclyn said, “at least it’s different.”

For the record, I didn’t pull on any of the skills Kee had been trying to teach me as I walked. The Ghosts knew something. I didn’t have the illusion I knew more.

Much as I knew that, I wanted to because I felt the same way I did when we were outside. It was the same intensity of presence. It wasn’t a bad or good feeling, but something felt intensely “there.”

Worse, I began hearing voices, their words indistinct, but I thought I knew them. One of them sounded like my grandfather.