An explosive gas was not an evil curse. It was an unmetered fuel supply looking for an adequate pipe hub.
He stood on the upper timber staging scaffold of Residential Sector Four. Giles Croft directed the installation of the main collection hood.
Above his head, the natural limestone ceiling arched into an inverted dome thirty feet deep. Because methane had a specific gravity of zero point five—barely half the thickness of sky air—it rose naturally to the highest pockets of the vault. It pooled in the rock hollows like oil floating on water.
Beside Giles, Master Borin Bronze-Lung and his apprentice smiths were bolting an eight-foot sheet-metal intake cone into the apex of the rock.
“Every fastener must be non-sparking glowing-bronze,” Giles instructed, checking the bolt heads with a pocket magnet. “No steel wrenches.
No carbon-steel studs. If a tool slips and strikes the casing, a bronze-on-bronze impact generates zero sparks.”
Borin wiped sweat from his copper-stubbled forehead with a heavy leather gauntlet.
“The boys are using copper-beryllium wrenches, Croft,” Borin rumbled. “And look at these fan blades.
