"Something agricultural, probably," said Linus.

"It was originally quite sophisticated, but has been repaired in a rather, ah, rustic manner."

Angus takes a grav belt and wraps it around his waist and fastens it.

In reply to Angus McStubbin (msg # 51):

Jedec as well takes and secures a grav belt.

"thanks Hano, did you see anything else interesting on the way over?? Anything we might want to put some extra time into.. sure your scouty senses weren't tingling?"

Billy climbs down from the vehicle as Hanno comes into land.  "I couldn't work out what it was.", he adds to Linus's repsonse..

Taking a grav belt, he straps it on and uses it to return to the top of the vehicle, as he waits for Hanno's reply to Jedec's question.

Blake likewise straps on a grav belt. Then fiddles with the harness and controls until its what he wants. Straight up and over ?? We should stop for a panoramic view on top of this wall too.

Ken strapped on the grav belt and fiddled with the controls.  "Let's go straight up.  Stick close to the wall so we don't stand out too much.  If we can let's pause at the top and see what is around first."

OK, Blake will stop below the top for a look/see. No sense silhouetting yourself ...

He answered, "not really. There aren't any cities or towns I could see. Could be something on the far side of the sphere, behind that artificial sun, where I couldn't see it. I did a circuit around the friendly village, no one seems to be sneaking up on them. Other than that this chamber seems deserted."

They all donned the grav belts. The anti-grav thrusters were around the waist, secured in a kind of adjustable vest. After a little instruction and practice, they were ready to go. They weren't that difficult, as automatic controls, a helmet-mounted HUD and AI handled the flying.

Once they were set to proceed, Hanno took off heading back towards base.

They started up the wall, stopping near the top. Carefully, they checked everything out, there did not seem to be any threats around.

Ref's Note: Who's going to be the first to peek over the top of the wall?

In reply to GM (msg # 58):
"Thanks, Hanno." Billy calls as Hanno leaves.  Then he spends a few more moments practising with the grav belt around the lake and its shores.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:42, Sun 30 Aug 2020.

"Right, let's see what is up there," said Linus, setting his grav belt to soar up above the wall to peek over.

In reply to Linus Spruance (msg # 60):

Angus fiddled with the controls to get used to them then followed Linus up the wall, hoping there was a gap and not a ceiling.

In reply to GM (msg # 58):

Jedec took point before, and assumes he will take point now.

I dont have any issues being the one to peer over.

"Good luck Hanno," Ken called out as the scout left again.  He practiced a bit and then followed the others letting Jedec or Linus look over first.  He did call out to each of them to spread out a bit when they came over the wall in case there was gunfire.

In reply to Jedec Istec (msg # 62):

Carefully, Jedec adjusted the anti-grav belt so that he slowly moved up until he could peek over the "cliff" edge.

He could see the top of the barrier "mountains" was where the main vents were. Large round holes, 20m across, were evenly spaced along the topmost spine of the barrier. The shafts plunged down into darkness, and machinery was visible at the bottom. Remarkably, some of the fans still appeared operational. He was at the lip of a shaft and felt the moist air moving, being drawn down to be recycled and then blown out somewhere else.

Past the barrier he could see a similar pattern of deep forest with patches of deep grassland. Somewhere in that neighboring section, maybe a kilometer away at most, was the closest point to the fusion neutrino signature.

In reply to GM (msg # 64):

Jedec will relate what he sees to the members of the group.

" I think we could move right over this and towards the power signature, OR we could drop down into the forest. Either way we might be targets, but air targets get no cover, so my suggestion would be to drop down on the other side, and progress by foot."

"I say fly to the target." as he flies over the wall and dips down a bit on the other side. "Never know who or what is where."

Billy had just assumed they were going to fly across this new forest, but responded  quickly, almost without a thought,  "I'm for flying as well.  So far we have only seen the natives with spears and other simple weapons, even my shotgun was strange to them, so I think we should be safe - probably safer than walking.  And it will be much quicker ..."

Off they flew, with Jedec on point. The formation was a little ragged due to lack of practice but autopilot counted for much.

They arrived at the spot that was closest to the neutrino signature. Hovering, they observed it was an overgrown grass field a kilometer across, bordered by trees on all sides. The neutrino signature was located 377.3m beneath the surface. There were no structures around them in the field, no vents or hatches visible through the long grass.

"I don't see nothing, can we search better from up here? Or down there. There must be a hatch some where."

"Why?" Billy asks.  "The power source is nearly 400 metres below us, that could be any number of floors down.  I think we need to find another one of those vents, like we saw on the other side of the wall, and get down to the service level below the floor of this chamber.  Then try and find a route that will take us down to it.  Let's just hope we find an elevator shaft ..."

"One that's working I hope, I'd hate the climb, though we could us the grav belts to go down it."

We could do a quick ground search, making sure there's no surface openings near us.

"Although, any those big fans should be visible from higher up, and we know there are probably hatches by those." Billy offers.  "We are likely to have to move 'horizontally' anyway. There isn't much chance of us funding a straight route down to the power supply any way."

An air search of the immediate area did not reveal anything promising.

Their main options were to land and search the meadow on foot, or expand the air search.