Tomas approached the western overhead frame towers. Then, a sound came tearing out of the pivot pin chamber of Pier Twelve that made every man on the crest freeze in his tracks.
It wasn’t a roar or a splash. It was a high, metal shriek—the sound of crystal-clear steel screaming under total clockwork yield. It sounded like an iron rail being snapped in two by a huge cold chisel.
On the western narrow high walkway, seventy feet above the bypass throat, Nessa Vale stood with her sound horn pressed to her ear. Her face was pale as freshly fallen snow.
She lowered the horn, turned toward Tomas, and raised her long brass sounding horn to her lips.
She blew four rapid, wild blasts into the teeth of the gale:
BLARE! BLARE! BLARE! BLARE!
The call of the four blasts was clear to every riverman and miner on the continent: ABANDON THE WORKS. TOTAL COLLAPSE.
Nessa dropped the horn on its lanyard, running along the narrow high walkway toward Tomas. Her breath was ragged, her voice cutting through the howling wind.
