The high-sky intake station stood at forty-five thousand feet along the knife-edge northern ridge of Mount Granite-Spur.
At this height, the air was thin, bitter, and tasted of metal sulfur and greasy void-ash.
The sky-high perigee of Khor-Vash drew closer. Then, the sky-fissure at eighty thousand feet poured millions of cubic yards of cosmic void-foul fog into the upper airstream.
The foul fog was an oily, purple fine mist of spark-charged hydrocarbons and ghostly fine dust matter.
Wherever it drifted into the intake vents of the mountain cities, it fouled air-flow ducts, choked fire draft chimney pipes, and triggered severe static-electric flashovers across the high-voltage lines.
Giles Croft stood on the steel service bridge spanning the main sky intake water chute.
He wore his sheepskin-lined flight coat and heavy fleece-lined boots, his hands resting on the tubular handrail.
Beside him, forty massive steel cylinders rotated inside heavy concrete holding vaults.
