The shadows in the Junction City switching yard didn’t behave according to the laws of optics.
Giles Croft stood on the timber platform of Switching Tower Three, his land-mapper’s pocket rule balanced across his knuckles.
Below him, eighty parallel tracks of nonstop-welded hard dark metal steel glinted faintly under the autumn stars.
Between tracks seven and eight, the darkness was pooling into thick, thick, sticky puddles that seemed to swallow the surrounding starlight.
The puddles didn’t stay in the hollows.
They crept along the web of the rails like spilled ink. It hissed softly whenever they crossed a spark bonding jumper.
“Refractive index anomalies,” Giles said in his quiet, flat builder flat voice.
Toby Karr stood beside him, clutching his field notebook and a brass sight hair-width.
