The heat in the lower galleries of Entry halls 100 through 104 dropped twenty degrees in less than three minutes.
While the Great Silt Plaza high above remained bathed in the warm amber radiance of the deep ring dome, the lowest drainage levels of the Ark were rapidly dropping into an arctic nightmare of poisonous violet frost.
Deep beneath the foundation slabs of Entry hall 104 lay the Genesis Well—a huge upright drain tube shaft sixty paces wide, bored straight through the dark rock bedrock of the oceanic ridge. In the First Age of the world, this shaft had served as the ultimate ballast discharge system for the ancient dreadnought, venting trillions of gallons of seawater into the oceanic deep pit through fifty-ton glowing-bronze flapper valves.
Now, those ancient valves were being forced backward against their heavy balance weights.
A huge negative pressure slope of minus eighteen point four sea-weights was sucking at the lower foundation plates, pulling the cold, dead water of the deep-sea trenches upward into the dry inside of the vessel.
Along the spiral stone ramps leading down from Entry hall 098 to Entry hall 104, Qiao Ming moved with swift, silent purpose, his bare calloused feet gripping the frost-rimmed granite steps.
