KILL SHOT

6 - Reynal and the warship

Mining Rhone was made more difficult by the natural voids in the quartzite rock. Often the giant boring machines would pierce into dissolution fissures, with the headwall impact knocking the bore head out of alignment. The larger the voids, the more significant the misalignment as the bore head broke through. Fracture voids containing significant horizontal gaps had to be avoided. Three-dimensional sonic investigation relied upon to direct the boring patterns was misinterpreted in several areas, so fractures originally deemed acceptable drill risks ended up creating major delays. Construction plans were changed as needed while mining of the plateau continued. Several passages had to be abandoned due to the difficulty mining in the accelerated timeline. Nevertheless, the initial safety chambers were ready by the move-in date. And since then, the primary campus—what we refer to today simply as Hemstad—has been expanded to a magnitude far surpassing its size at the end of the final Fall.

Siddhartha Eicher-SchnellgangCivil Engineering Report to Managers IV, 65 AF

Reynal

Rey guided his team west along a path parallel to the one that took him to Jedda Gren's. He was headed for a traveler's hut he'd visited once with Teach. The trail was torturous in the dark of the early dawn, sending him and the dogs through an ice-filled gorge and between boulders as big as the trading post. Those had broken off the walls, Teach said, during the Fall's final deluge.

While the snow piled up into glaciers on Earthland and—Rey assumed—everywhere else on the globe, some valleys formed glacial lakes. Those eventually breached, releasing the water in a torrent which washed away everything in its path. Most valleys refilled with snow and were glaciers once again.

Such was the case with the mountain valley behind the City. The flood from the ancient glacial lake there devastated what was left of the original city as well as the plain beyond. That area, now used for farming, was studded with giant boulders. They often served as meeting places. People thought the half-buried boulders brought good luck to those who touched them.

Packed ice was thick in the canyon, but Rey trusted his dogs. His rig was long enough to navigate most fissures without flipping, and the mutts knew when the surface was unstable and slowed accordingly. Their doing so gave him a chance to adjust his route on the fly—not unlike how he'd had to change things up on the wall cross during the Ice Scramble.

No matter what he'd said to Adelmo, he had no idea if Kiev stood a chance against the Cerebus competitors, and no matter what he'd told Kiev, he really didn't care who won. Sure, he'd like Kiev gone from Earthland; he'd like all hatchlings gone. But in the long run, it wouldn't make a difference. There were natural-born citizens of Cerebus who were asses just as much as Kiev. If he left, Kiev's job wouldn't be given back to an Earthlander anyway.

Even if Rey was interested in the Ice Runner finals, he'd be too busy to watch. He and his brothers were always tasked with extra chores when Cerebus came to Earthland. The one thing he needed to keep in mind was what Teach had told him: no good could come of an Earthlander besting one of Cerebus' own. Even so, Rey had to be better; he just couldn't show it off to anyone else. They couldn't know he was stronger. Faster. Smarter. If they found out, they'd squash him.

Then they'd squash everyone he loved.

The floor of the valley twisted and turned, the path running next to a sharp cliff on his left. Lichen, scrub, and small rocks dotted the sloping canyon wall. Ahead, the trail curved around a jutting boulder larger than most along the path. He slowed his approach, the hut coming up just ahead.

That was when the dogs began to growl.

Their hackles rose. Their ears flattened. Rey tensed, his heart slamming into his throat. He eased the sled around the boulder. The scent of burning timber hit him then, as did the thrum of engines. It didn't make any sense. He was in the outlier hills—there were no engines in the outlier hills. He had to be wrong. About the sound and the smell. Except he wasn't.