The rhythmic heartbeat shaking through the steel casing of Borehole Seven didn’t falter for two hours.
Giles Croft stood on the derrick platform. His fingers were pressed firmly against the warm iron collar.
Beside him, Rathmor the Rusty’s clockwork ear-horns clicked as the clockwork iron-puppet processed the sound shakes traveling four thousand feet up the pipe.
“Hum is point two cycles per second, Master Croft,” Rathmor reported, his brass escapements whirring smoothly.
“Sound deep ring indicates a huge fluid mass under high water-pressure holding.
Thickness profile doesn’t match molten magma or petroleum reservoirs.”
“It’s a nearby hot-water pocket with living stretch,” Giles diagnosed. He stepped back from the collar and wiping oil from his fingers.
“Whatever is down there, the fault plane is still locked with twenty million tons of frictional sideways tearing force.
