Page 15 of Spectral Seas (Spectral Worlds #2)

N AHL LED THE party through a dim, neon lit maze of two-story box structures—each little different from the last. The boxes were the homes and workshops of the syn miners, nothing more than a prefab shanty town. Most everything in the grimy manmade cavern reminded Abby of the Low, from the permeating haze to the pocked, worn floor. In the Meg, trains ran along tiers of ever higher rails while here, industrial transports screeched along trestles of ancient girder, beamed struts, and decaying iron columns—all discolored from a millennium of hard mineral seepage from the mountain and sea above.

The inhabitants of the village appeared docile. They silently passed by with their generic goods. Some leaned against the doorframes, flipping through two–colored green and yellow pictogram pamphlets, while others whispered in shadow. With the exception of their random hats—the fez being the most popular—each and every one of the synthetic miners was near duplicate to the other, some thinner, some plumper, but beneath each hat, regardless of style, were the same iridescent staring eyes. Yet despite the apparent interest of the syn workers, none spoke to the group and all parted to the side of the walkway as the entourage passed.

“Ever feel like you’re being watched?” Leta said sarcastically.

“We’re certainly not blending in,” said Abby. “I don’t suppose they see many visitors from the Alpha Plane down here.”

“Again,” said Uhggwa, “you are correct. The syndicate representatives rarely visit the depths of the mine.”

Their brief walk took them to the far side of the village, to the shores of a large, glowing, emerald lake, a clear pool brightly illuminated from a source deep within which gave it a near phosphorescent appearance and sent its reflection rippling across the ceiling of the cavern and the broad bottom of a circular platform suspended high above.

The platform drew Abby’s attention and he put his ocular implants to work. Three thick cables dangled down from a large hole at its center into the depths of the lake. Abby had seen similar cable systems before, and the augments projected onto his oculars confirmed they were composed of diamond fiber, the type used for accelerated lift systems. His guess proved correct when a round caged rigging shot up through the surface of the lake and rose to the high platform station. He suspected that was where Nahl was leading them, but there was no ladder or stairwell leading up to the structure. The shore surrounding the lake was clear of infrastructure. When Nahl met the water’s edge, Abby understood. The syn kept walking — without hesitation — directly into the glowing emerald pool. The Viridians did the same. Abby and Leta met eyes, shrugged to each other, then entered the lake behind the others.

The suits were sluggish, and pockets of air buoyed around their hips and shoulders, but they were an affective diving apparatus; and once they submerged, the internal pressure stabilized and the visors remained clear.

“Nine planes ,” Abby chipped. “Would you look at that.” They were on a ledge, overlooking a series of smooth carved terraces that stepped deep down into the pool. “The mine is at the bottom of this lake.”

“How is Nahl breathing?” asked Leta.

“Look closely,” said Abby, “at the slits near his ears.”

“Are those gills?” asked Leta.

“I believe they are.”

“Water syns?”

“I’m not surprised. I’ve come across syns modified to breathe the burning methane gases of the Jupiter moons, and others that could be exposed to the freezing vacuum of open space, if only for a short time. It makes sense that the miners of Viridis are optimized for their tasks and by the way his gills are pumping, Nahl appears to relish in the depths he was designed for.”

The water resistance slowed Abby and Leta, but Nahl moved across the terrace as effortlessly as he had before they submerged, his green suit and little grey pillbox hat unaffected. Not losing a skip in his step, the syn led them down a ramp to the next stepped terrace then onto a narrow girder pier that jutted out toward the middle of the lake to a lift platform where the three thick cables from the surface pierced down through as many lift bays. Abby leaned to peek over the side of the walkway to trace them down. The cables led to another platform suspended across the pool a few terraces below, but past that, they faded into the more aqua than emerald haze below, an eerie abyss peppered with tiny bright pinpoints, and a pale saucer of yellow light illuminating the depths.

Two of the three lift bays were empty. Nahl gestured for the party to enter the third where the operator, yet another mustard dressed syn, waited for them to board. The cylindrical lift was easily the same large size as the one they’d taken from the surface to the village and—apart from the suspension cable rigged to one side—separated from the vast surrounding pool only by a thin wall of chain link. Abby found the openness comforting, less constricting, yet he could see that even before the full party had boarded, Leta was shrinking in her suit.

Nahl nodded to the operator. With the muffled clanking of the accordion door and the pull of a lever, the diamond fiber cable began to slide by and the cage descended.

~*~