The bronze shear pins inside the end-post box cut with a sharp, metal report that sounded like two carriage axles snapping under a sudden dynamic load.
Len Vey felt the shock wave travel up the shaft of the bronze key into the bones of his right palm. It shook through his forearm to his collarbone. For three terrifying seconds, the internal outward-pulling governor screamed. A high, piercing sound whine as the bronze balance wheel spun against its counterweighted return spring, searching for a posture error between the two keyways.
Then the iron casing shuddered.
A cloud of high-pressure, bone-chilling cold air gas vented from the four relief ports around the watching port with a violent, whistling hiss, wrapping their knees in a dense, swirling mist of white vapor. The gas was dry, bitterly cold, and smelled intensely of winter frost, stale machine oil, and fine brass filings.
Len’s Road Sense picked up the violent, underground redirection of force through the limestone bedrock.
The six-inch lead channel beneath Bed 19 didn’t rupture. The forty pounds of counterweighted river water Edda held on Tier Three were not needed. The bypass pipe hub Melli had bolted to the casing absorbed the high-pressure head, channeling the excess pressure into the dead sump water chute.
