At minus twelve thousand one hundred and eighty meters, the drainage tunnel opened onto a raised dark rock ledge that hung fifty feet above the boiling sulfur pools of the lower volcano bowl.
Arthur signaled a ten-minute working halt.
In high-intensity deep-rift deployments, tactical discipline was kept not through heroic fight-or-flight rush rushes, but through relentless, scheduled medical upkeep. Living machinery running under extreme hyperbaric pressure and sub-zero cold needed constant lubrication, body-energy refueling, and tissue check.
“Ten minutes for triage and rations,” Arthur announced. He lowered his heavy medical pack onto a dry quartzite slab. “Titus, outer edge bunker. Pip, maintain low-heat outer edge.”
Titus settled his massive frame across the narrow entrance to the ledge, his shell armor scales linked to create a solid wall of fiery stone. The giant tortoise let out a long, wheezing sigh of relief, extending his neck so Arthur could inspect his neck skin folds.
Arthur pulled a tub of specialized anti-freezing animal fat—compounded from polar bear adipose fats, man-made beeswax, and bitter salt stone salts—from his medical kit.
He knelt beside Titus’s front walking limbs. He used a broad wooden spatula to work the thick, yellow ointment deep into the stringy articular margins where his legs met the heavy belly shell plates.
