Heat-powered comfort was the boundary line between a civilized community and a miserable cave expedition.
In the newly drained residential avenue of the Lower Karst Basin, five thousand feet beneath the mountain surface, Giles Croft stood inside the arched doorway of a three-room Founding Age stone apartment.
On the polished dark rock floor sat a five-column sectional radiator cast from heavy gray iron.
Giles held a contact surface fire gauge against the top header casting. He watched the needle climb steadily past two hundred degrees Fahrenheit.
Beside him, Toby Karr carefully bled the air from the radiator’s nickel-plated valve with a small brass key.
A faint, high-pitched hiss of escaping air gave way to a gentle puff of dry, sweet-smelling steam. Toby tightened the key a quarter-turn. The radiator began streaming a deep, pervasive warmth that drove the ancient chill out of the damp granite walls.
“Air pocket cleared, Lord Giles,” Toby reported, setting his wrench on the tool chest.
“Radiator header is at two hundred and twelve degrees across all twelve sections. The room heat gauge on the far wall has already climbed from forty-four degrees to sixty-eight.”
