At mile three, the underground heat crossed forty-two degrees.
The upright descent through the Great Rift became an endurance march through a heavy-duty fire. Great billowing plumes of pale turquoise vapor vented continuously from massive circular chimney pipes carved directly into the western cliff face. It filled the deep gap with a choking, chemical fog that tasted of bitter wintergreen and liquid ammonia.
Lin Tao adjusted the wet linen mask tied across his mouth and nose, his eyes watering behind his protective copper goggles.
“Heat-powered exhaust,” Lin Tao muttered, squinting through the shifting vapor clouds as his boots searched for purchase on a slick, moss-covered channel. “The Precursor core uses cooling-oil refrigerant to draw heat away from the main logic matrices. But the return ducts have burst.”
In closed-loop heat-powered systems, Lin Tao analyzed, his mind mapping the venting rhythm, when a heat exchanger leaks into the surrounding environment, it creates a runaway positive feedback loop. The cooling fluid escapes, reducing the cooling capacity of the core, which increases running heat levels, causing further pipe spreading and more leaks.
Tie Shan clung to a thick bronze pipe beside him, his bare arms glistening with a mixture of sweat and condensed chemical coolant. The giant’s breathing was deep and rhythmic, filtering the toxic vapors through his iron-hard lungs without a cough.
