Astronaut lands on planet-sized artificial sphere, enters, takes ever-larger elevators into the interior

Question

I have vague memories of this story - probably a short or novelette length published in a magazine like Analog in the 50s or 60s. A human space traveler lands on an artificial planet-sized sphere, finds his way inside, finds civilized beings, takes an elevator down a number of levels, gets out and takes a larger elevator further down, where he again finds an even larger elevator and heads down again.

The story, IIRC, had an odd single-word name like Kerplunk or Skiddoo.

You can look up short story names on the ISFDB. Neither Kerplunk nor Skiddoo find any likely looking matches. — John Rennie, Sep 03 '20 at 07:25
Possible duplicate of Report on an Unidentified Space Station - longer name, no aliens, but the rest is a straight match. — moopet, Sep 03 '20 at 08:24

score 18 · Accepted Answer · edited Feb 01 '23 at 13:14

Ker-Plop, a novella by Ted Reynolds, first published in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, January 1979, available at the Internet Archive.

Gradually Cotter Oren’s mind fell out of nothingness into a semblance of existence. To exist was to fall, to drop deeper and deeper towards the center. To transfer to larger and larger elevators, descending deeper and deeper into a world, a universe, Galgaronok.

Astronaut lands on planet-sized artificial sphere, enters, takes ever-larger elevators into the interior

1 Answers1