Incandescence

As the stone moved Roi could see a halo of light shimmering around it; though she wasn't gazing directly into the Incandescence through the small gap between the stone and the chamber's walls, even the reflection from the tunnel wall was dazzling. There was scarcely any wind leaking out through the gap, though; the path straight ahead through the great tunnel was so much easier for it to take.

The halo shrank and dimmed as the plug came closer, though the light remained visibly brighter than that flowing through the stone itself. It occurred to Roi that they could have put void-watchers here after all, in spite of the inconvenient direction of the weight; with one of Cho's contraptions poking out into the void, the observer would not have needed to cling to the surface. It was only the historical accident of the order in which various things had been invented that had kept the void-watchers at the junub edge. With the present system working smoothly, though, and all the teams accustomed to it, she couldn't bring herself to suggest rearranging everything for the sake of efficiency. Light-messages reached their destinations quickly enough.

It would be a few shifts yet before the void-watchers could tell them precisely what the new tunnel had achieved. The further they moved from the Hub, the less powerful the wind became, but they were also ascending a gentler slope as they struggled toward the fateful distance of the Wanderer's orbit.

As they headed toward the exit together, Haf said, "We should find a way to capture the wind and then push it out ourselves, with a strength that suits us. Why should we be hostage to the speed it travels naturally?"

Neth assumed a posture containing a mixture of respect and amusement. "That's a nice idea, but where does the 'strength that suits us' come from?"

"Give me time," Haf replied. "There must be a way."

Roi heard a deep groaning sound coming through the rock. She had no idea what its cause was, but she had never heard anything like it when she had visited the other tunnels. Perhaps they were experimenting with a new configuration of flow-control baffles, but if that was the case then this ominous noise suggested that the wind was making short work of them. She looked to Neth for an explanation, but it was Bard who shouted for all of them to run.

The noise grew louder as they reached the exit tunnel, and as they clambered up the slope an intense light rose up behind them. It could not be the baffles; Roi hoped it might just be a single plug coming loose, but she didn't waste time looking back and trying to weigh up various scenarios. She saw that Haf was far ahead of her, his youthful vigor carrying him to the front of the pack. Amid the chaos and fear, and her own determination to outrace the danger if she possibly could, a small part of her relaxed, resigned to anything so long as he survived.

As they passed the chamber where she'd waited with Haf, the ground rasped and screamed like a susk in agony. The tunnel flattened, making progress easier, and the light from behind dimmed even as the sound became unbearable. Roi finally paused to look back and saw a fissure opening in the rock behind her, separating the tunnel they'd ascended a few heartbeats ago from the one they were now following. It was the kind of terrible spectacle that she had once imagined a division of the Splinter might bring, but the weights had done nothing but ease as they'd moved away from the Hub. If rock was parting from rock, the curvature of space-time was not to blame. As she bolted on down the tunnel, she understood that the most likely cause was not a fresh Jolt from the Wanderer, either; the timing would have been too much of a coincidence. This was a disaster they had brought upon themselves.

They ran until the rock fell silent and the glare of the Incandescence was left behind. When they finally paused to take stock of the situation, Neth was nowhere to be found. Roi couldn't remember seeing her at all during their panicked flight, but it was possible that she'd split up from them at some point, taking a different turn once they'd had a choice. More than a dozen other people from the chamber were missing.

Bard led them to a point where a terrified light-messenger was still standing at her post, though the next station to her rarb was now deserted. It was still possible to send queries skirting around the tunnel in the other direction, and Bard was slowly able to build up a picture of what had been lost and what remained.