The descent into Sector 5 was marked by an abrupt change in air pressure that would have burst the ears of an ordinary human. The high-pressure lift cage groaned down the upright dark rock shaft. Then, the surrounding sky thickness climbed steadily to four sea-weights. It packed the damp sea air until every breath tasted of crushed graphite, machine grease, and bitter saline salt water. Outside the cage’s heavy wire lattice, damp fiery stone blurred past in an unbroken smear of black dark rock, lit only by the rhythmic strobe of amber emergency beacons bolted into the rock every thirty meters.
Arthur Vance stood balanced on the shaking steel floor, his weight distributed with easy body care. His newly restructured bone marrow—interlinked with carbonized stone lattices from his recent cellular reversion—absorbed the clockwork shudder of the mid-air cables without transmitting a fraction of strain to his knee tendons. Beside his left calf, Grimm pressed his massive shoulder firmly against Arthur’s leg. The hound’s thick jet-black coat drank the harsh amber glare of the warning beacons, shedding no glow. A deep, sub-heard shaking hummed in the beast’s chest. Grimm emitted no hostile growl. But kept a rhythmic test hum scanning the thickness of the bedrock beneath their boots.
