In addition, long tables divided the chamber into aisles. Halfway down
one of these narrow passageways the aliens had gathered in a group as
silent and intent now as they had been noisy outside. Raf could see
nothing to so rivet their attention but a series of scuffed marks in
the dust which covered the floor. But an alien, whom he recognized as
the officer who had taken him to inspect the globe, moved carefully
along that trail, following it to a second door. And as Raf pushed
down another aisle, paralleling his course, he was conscious of a
sickly sweet, stomach-churning stench. Something was very, very dead
and not too far away.
The officer must have come to the same conclusion, for he hurried to
open the other door. Before them now was a narrow hall broken by slit
windows, near the roof, through which entered sunlight. And one such
beam fully illuminated a carcass as large as that of a small elephant,
or so it seemed to Raf's startled gaze.
It was difficult to make out the true appearance of the creature,
though guessing from the scaled strips of skin it had been reptilian,
for the body had been found by scavengers and feasting had been in
progress.
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