Lin Mei pressed both hands against the cold steel railing as ocean spray misted across the catwalk.
Twenty feet below the grating, black seawater surged through the moon pool caisson in heavy, rolling swells. Thick white foam swirled in violent circles around the twenty-four-inch steel drill-string that plunged straight down into the abyssal trench.
“Hold the earpieces steady, Miss Lin,” Dr. Corvo said, offering his acoustic medical stethoscope. “Steel is an exceptional conductor of acoustic trauma.”
Lin Mei took the chrome binaural headset and slid the rubber tips into her ears. She knelt on the wet steel grating, shivering as the damp sea wind whipped through her coveralls.
“Doctor, is the diaphragm sensitive enough?” Lin Mei asked, looking up at him.
“It has detected murmurs through three inches of diseased thoracic wall,” Corvo replied smoothly. “It will hear whatever is knocking on that iron pipe.”
Lin Mei pressed the cold chrome disc against the vibrating drill-string.
“Hold the angle perpendicular, Lin Mei,” Corvo advised. “Heavy-wall drilling steel creates acoustic refraction. If you tilt the head, the surface harmonics will muddy the signal.”
