Up in Greenhouse One, the death of the anchor arrived not as an idea. But as physical violence inflicted upon the air.
Stellan Gault stood in the central aisle beside the twelfth and final wagon of seed grain. His woolen mittens clutched was tight against his ribs. His teeth knocked together with a rhythmic, uncontrollable chatter that made his jaw ache. Less than fifteen minutes ago, this building had been an oppressive, tropical swamp of eighty-five degrees, heavy with the humid, yeasty stench of composted oak mulch, sulfur fertilizer, and rotting mycelium. Workers had stripped to their canvas waistcoats, their bare forearms slick with sweat as they swung their harvesting knives through the spongy caps.
Now, the mountain had returned.
Without the nonstop heat pulse of the buried radiator coils and the intense spark radiance of the copper arc-lamps, the three acres of single-pane leaded glass offered no more pushback to the outside winter than a sheet of wet paper. The unending cold of Rookvale’s twelve-year night—a sub-zero gale born on the northern glaciers and trapped within the mountain basin—slammed down upon the roof with the crushing weight of an avalanche.
Crack.
The sound was sharp, brittle, and dry. It echoed from the highest ridge-beam eighty feet above the planting beds.
