The optic channels of the Zeiss-Vanguard Loupe didn’t merely record light. They measured the hum of world-size deep ring.
Arthur Vance advanced along the semi-clear spine of a quartz ridge. Then, two distinct ringing spikes cut through the background aetheric noise of the hollow core. They hummed against his eye nerve like twin tuning forks struck inside his skull. It shook at frequencies separated by an octave of pure ancient energy.
Arthur halted, raising his right fist to signal the squad.
Behind him, Titus brought his four-ton forelegs down onto the quartz escarpment with a muted cloomph. He anchored his gravimetric field to steady the platform. Grimm right away pressed his flank against Arthur’s thigh, his single ear tilted forward, carbon-black hackles stiffening along his neck spine.
“Magnifying glass tracking data, isolate nearby carrier waves,” Arthur commanded in a low, even murmur.
The brass housing of his monocle whined as the dual prisms split the sight feed into overlapping spectral bands. Across his left eye, two navigational beacons resolved into stark sharp-angled markers against the curved inside sky of the hollow Earth.
The first bright light lay eighteen miles to the north-northwest, nestled within an inverted castle wall of dark and stone-hard sky wood that jutted downward from the concave crust like an ancient stalactite. It pulsed with a dense, rhythmic emerald rhythm. The signed name of Progenitor Vault Six, known in the ancient records as the Genesis Suture Vault and the terrestrial anchor of the World-Tree array.
