The quiet of thirty-two thousand meters down was unlike any silence Arthur Vance had ever known.
It wasn’t the dead, oppressive silence of a tomb, nor the tense, held-breath quiet of a battlefield. It was the deep, rhythmic, living stillness of the Earth’s heart—a calm peace born from the complete harmonization of four ancient elemental vectors.
On the smooth dark rock terrace beside the Continental Core Gate, the squad gathered around their most extraordinary campfire yet.
Pip had built the hearth. Using three dry, stone-hard placoderm ribs that Arthur had sterilized with a silver-aloe wash, the little Golden Crow had arranged a neat pyramidal structure. Perched atop the wood, Pip touched the tip of his third talon to the kindling. A single spark of sixty-thousand-degree solar star-fire ignited the stone-hard marrow, producing a contained, smoke-free flame of pure golden-white light that warmed the terrace to a comfortable twenty-six degrees.
Arthur sat cross-legged before the fire, having stripped off his heavy dive gauntlets and trauma vest. He wore only his comfortable fleece undergarments, his bare hands resting against his knees. He watched the flames dance.
Grimm right away claimed his rightful place. The scarred Netherhound circled twice, then dropped his heavy, muscular bulk squarely across Arthur’s lap. Grimm rested his massive, scarred chin on Arthur’s left thigh, his dark lips parting in a relaxed canine pant as he soaked in the radiant solar heat of Pip’s fire. Every few moments, Grimm gave Arthur’s forearm a slow, sandpaper lick, his single intact…
