Asteroid

"That's why it felt weird when I pushed you, then..." Elka said. "Nice knockers."

Charlotte grunted. "Thanks..." With the little hatch above open she gazed at her cell mate. Although tinted purple because of the light her skin had the distinct pallor of native Earth people. Elka was much shorter than herself as well, and built more heavily, with broader shoulders and somehow, more massive. She had nothing of the volume Skund and his men boasted, but you could tell she was made under two thirds more gravity. Also, she was wearing clothes with fabric in front of her chest and between her legs.

"So why do you have them out?" Elka asked, "Is that normal up there?"

"Oh goodness no," Charlotte said, and recounted her misadventures. Elka listened with keen interest, stopping her often to ask about details of Martian life. The mag-lev, the City built on itself hundreds of times over what with the Burrows, the crowded surface and the high rise apartment buildings were all quite alien to her. Similar structures on old Terra still existed but no longer on that kind of scale anymore. When it came to the pirates, the Terran girl shared her notes.

"You could have told me my auntie was pulling the strings at this point," Charlotte said, "I'm too tired to be surprised and it's barely been two days..." She paused, thinking back to her dream encounter with Frank. Should she bring that up?

Before she could ponder the question more deeply, a loud noise abruptly ended the conversation. It was a high pitched wailing screech. It had no discernible source, ripping through the prisoners' ears from all directions. The sound persisted several seconds before lowering in pitch and cutting out.

"Ugh," Charlotte groaned, rubbing the sides of her head. "You've been here longer than me, what was that?"

"Search me, I've not heard that one before."

"Right..." Charlotte sighed, "Well, I don't know about you, but I'm not done stretching my legs. We found a button earlier, didn't we? Let's see if there's anything more exciting now there's some light."

Further inspection of the cell in Martian light revealed it's precise shape and austere furnishings. The room was perfectly cylindrical, with smooth, almost polished stone walls, floor and ceiling, save for that purple window. There were two stacks of bunks and a set of shelves, disposed as though on the points of an equilateral triangle. The two upper bunks were positioned so that by standing on them someone could comfortably peer through the transparent isonon dome. Elka and Charlotte were able to get up to that position in a single jump given the low gravity of the asteroid. Outside they saw a desolate landscape of bare rock, craters and small mountains of the same lifeless grey, with an unsettling nearby horizon. But in all directions and spaced regularly from one another, small purple domes identical to theirs dotted the surface, hundreds of other tiny cells.

Back down at floor level they examined the spot on the wall in between the two bunk bed stacks where Elka had stumbled upon the switch opening the dome above. There was a tiny rectangular metal panel with two round button switches in it side by side. There were no helpful markings, and she couldn't remember which one she'd pressed. The pair looked around, trying to see in the grainy purple light if anything else was visible that be related to the switches.

"Oh you remember that bit in the floor that was cold?" Charlotte said, and moved towards the middle of the cell. She folded her legs up and dropped, very slowly to her knees. Her eyes focused on the ground and she put her palms down flat on the rock. Barely detectable, a thin line, a seam traced a curve under her fingers. She shifted to move her own shadow aside, and could just make out a large circle. The floor inside it was colder, and slightly stickier than elsewhere, not coated in fine stone dust.

"Well?" Elka called.

Charlotte glided back to her feet and turned to her. Standing there in the middle of the room, purple light and shadows made pleasing shapes on her exposed chest. She did have nice knockers, Elka thought.

"Try it," Charlotte said.

One switched was stiff and unresponsive at first, as though locked in place. Elka kept a finger on that one as she made to push on the other, and felt it pop outwards as the other went in. It was like the safety on/off switches on heavy machinery. Instantly the same exact humming throb vibrated the air as when the dome was opened, and the light changed. Both women looked up to see Mars being obscured by opaque metal once more, yet the cell didn't go dark. Instead a new light shined from below. The circle in the floor was transparent, and a jade green glow was emitted from somewhere beyond. A new, slightly higher pitched vibration replaced the one from above and that round section sank downwards a few inches before sliding sideways and disappearing completely. A loud clank marked the end of the mechanism's cycle and silence was returned to the cell.

"Look at that," Charlotte said, leaning over the opening.

Elka approached. Her eyes adjusted to the much brighter green light. Below was a narrow flight of stone stairs spiraling tightly down and away. "Looks like we _are _free to go stretch our legs," she said. "Same back on the sphere. They let me move around free. Where would I go? Space myself?"

"That's a losing attitude," Charlotte said. "Although it makes little difference... I'm curious, do you want to go explore with me?"