The boiler room.

Adam needed to get away from Sister Winlay, especially as long as she wore that oversized shirt as a makeshift dress. In fact, until he could regain control of his raging emotions, it would be best to avoid her as much as possible. He glanced quickly into the bathroom and saw that instead of a bath, the room was equipped with a shower stall. He considered stepping under a cool spray of water to dampen his uncontrollable reaction to the new initiate, but until he was sure that they were safe, Adam knew he wouldn't be able to enjoy the shower.

The boiler room was the largest of the three rooms. Two great stainless steel boilers dominated the left side of the room, Adam couldn't see the firebox that heated the metal containers that contained the steam, but he knew from the secret research of the Cavaliers that the Landers had several different ways to fire their generators.

To his right he could see a large table covered with a messy collection of loose papers, schematic diagrams and bound books. He wondered if any of these explained the mysteries of the great boilers or the electricity that the generators that accompanied them produced. In the corner of the room Adam could see a large comfortable chair that sat in front of a "L" shaped desk that was built into the walls. On the wall was a panel with scores of buttons and knobs and lining the walls above were over a dozen of the Landers' ancient viewing screens.

All but two of the screens were black, one showed a fuzzy image of a hallway (perhaps the one just outside the door) and on the other viewer a thin black line moved very slowly across the screen through a field of green. The line was nearly flat with, only tiny wobbles in its progress across the screen except for two spikes that rose high through the green zone and dangerously close to the orange section of the screen. Satisfied that the line was once again solidly in the green, Adam continued his tour of the large room. He descended the three steps into the lower level of the chamber where the two shiny spheres each more than three meters in diameter rested behind a waist high railing that protected the room's occupants from the red hot boilers.

How long could he keep the Oracle and young initiates here in the relative safety of the boiler room? Adam knew that Joseph Anglar and the Virtego could wait only so long in the busy Telnon harbor before he would have to leave, could he get his charges to him before it was too late?

As he considered his tactical options he caught a hint of movement in the great mirrored surface of the boiler. His hand dropped to his sword and he whipped around to face this new threat.