The suction of the deep pit pulled at the water with the physical hunger of a falling mountain.
Three thousand five hundred feet below the waves, a roaring whirlpool of black seawater and crushed dark rock was pouring into the four-mile earth-shaking fracture. He dragged mud, kelp, and loose stonework down into the hot fiery mantle below.
Foreman Corbin Cross had his magnetic boots locked onto the pipe rim of a sixty-foot iron-hard metal mooring pylon, both hands clamped around the bronze rungs as the water-flow drag pulled his legs horizontally toward the void like a flag in a storm.
Through his rebreather mask, his breath sounded like wild, dry scraping.
“Master Giles! Squeak! The suction is six knots! If my boot magnets slip, I’m heading straight to the molten core!”
“Your boot magnets are rated for twelve hundred pounds of upright shear, Corbin,” Giles Croft’s calm, level voice came over the copper hydrophone wire.
“Don’t let go of the pylon, and verify the arrival of Grout Train One.”
Out of the deep indigo water, gliding along the underwater rail line that ended at Vault Alpha’s lower terrace, emerged a heavy-duty locomotive pushing eight specialized high-pressure slurry cars.
