The lower outer edge trench of Sector One ran along fifty miles of fractured limestone bedrock.
Between the concrete foundation footing of the geodesic dome and the rough-hewn native stone, a nonstop spreading gap had formed.
It was three inches wide, six feet deep, and whistled like a pipe organ as air pressure pressed down from above.
Worse. There, the blast wave of the cathedral-sized meteor had jarred the bedrock, faint spatial fractures had spiderwebbed through the rock.
Through those cracks, thin, purplish tendrils of deep-sea matter were already beginning to probe toward the warm, high-pressure air of the surface.
Giles Croft arrived at Station Four in a steam-powered check lorry.
He stepped down onto the muddy embankment, his steel-toed boots sinking an inch into the wet gravel.
He carried his boxwood folding rule in his hand. He tapped the edge against his thigh as he surveyed the outer edge.
