The deep-rock silence of Stratum Four was broken only by the rhythmic, bubbling gurgle of the earth-heat mud pool and the slow, heavy breathing of an unmoving tortoise.
Arthur Vance stood on the firm dark rock bank, his hands resting on his hips, his eyebrows raised beneath his breathing mask. He looked down at Titus, who had now underwater himself so thoroughly that only the twin black-ice spires of his back shell and the blunt tip of his snout protruded from the glowing, amber-tinted silt.
“Titus,” Arthur said, his voice firm and commanding. “Column order. Stand up.”
Titus didn’t stand up. He didn’t even twitch. The great tortoise simply inhaled a deep breath of warm fiery sulfur and let out a long, rumbling snore that sent a series of nested ripples washing across the surface of the mud bath.
Arthur tapped his magnifying glass, reading the behavioral tracking data scrolling across his eye nerve with a mixture of amusement and mounting frustration.
“Lower scute comfort,” Arthur muttered, shaking his head. “After surviving total zero in Antarctica, swimming through molten iron, and fighting a swarm of thirty-meter centipedes, my legendary Earth-Core Xuanwu has been defeated by a warm mud puddle.”
Arthur took a deep breath, pinched the bridge of his nose beneath his breathing mask. Then he looked around at his squad.
