The iron track was being built towards the basin and this required a different way of doing things compared to the work that was done near the delta. The southern part had volcanic foundations but the approach to Sector Seven was very different. It was like building on a flat area that was always moving. The ground was not stable. It was like a big trap. The surface looked solid. It would collapse if something heavy was put on it.Valen was standing at the three-mile marker. His boots were stuck in the mud. He was working with Tor to put the stabilization rafts in place. They had to be very careful because the ground was not stable. Every timber had to be put in by hand. It was very hard work. The ballast was. Tor was trying to fix it. He was kneeling on a plank and using a big iron pin to hold everything in place. They had put a lot of foundry slag into the depression. It was not working. The mud was eating it up.Valen said they should not use slag. They should use the storage casin

The resonance inside the five miles of the basalt passage did not disappear when Noa turned off the power lever. A faint rhythmic ticking remained inside the crystalline structure of the magnetite rock, a kind of memory of the current that had just been forced through the copper coils. The air in the hub room was still warm with a sharp smell of burnt linseed oil and dry sweet dust from the pulverized starch blocks.Valen kept his hand on the unpolished stone wall of the tunnel feeling the slow dissipation of the thermal energy. The vibration was moving downward traveling along the axis of the mountain core into the subterranean root structures.The return wave came four minutes and twelve seconds after our transmission Noa said. She did not look up from her slate sheet; her fingers were rapidly tracing the curves of the needle displacement lines. The distance can be calculated with a degree of certainty, Valen. The source of the response lies three hundred and forty-two miles to the

The train was going down from the ground to the southern coast of Sector Thirteen. This meant the air was changing a lot. For days the workers had been in the air of the upper ground. The only wetness came from the mist that came from the northern mountains. As the green train went past the thirty-mile mark the air started to feel warm and wet. It smelled like salt and old metal.Valen was standing on the train his feet steady on the vibrating floor. Marcus was fixing the steam injector. The engine was using a system to make it work. It got its power from water that came from under the ground. This was different from the systems in the north that used water from the river to make power.The grade is going down Marcus said. He was holding the brake handle. He was looking at the train tracks that went down to the coast. We are entering the area of the maritime yards, Valen. The ground is made of dirt and old metal pieces. The people who built this place made it strong to hold the machin

Locomotive Unit Two entered the empty space of the northern frontier. This marked the point where the territorys three main industrial areas came together. Behind the engine the long line of Vanguard Carriers was heavy with forty tons of magnetite ore from the eastern peaks and three crates of precision-machined bronze valves from the newly opened Sector Fifteen tool store. The air was cold and dry and the salt on the ground was like a mirror reflecting the pale morning light. This made the alignment crews put down their leather goggles before they started laying out the tracks.Valen got down from the locomotive. His boots broke through the hard white surface. Underneath he saw a layer of volcanic ash. The ground was perfectly flat for three leagues, which made it a great place to build a shunting yard and a hub for the region. To the north he saw dark shapes rising from the ground like silent giants. These were the administrative storage buildings, covered in a thick layer of frost.

The train line was finally reaching the edge of the map. Beyond the fifty-five mile marker the dry ground gave way to a sheet of blue ice that had been moving down from the north for centuries. This ice buried the paths under twenty feet of hard frozen water. The wind was not a storm anymore it was a constant cold current that blew across the ice at twenty-five knots. It carried ice particles that damaged the green paint of Locomotive Unit Two and forced the workers to clear the rails every ten minutes.Valen stood on the platform of the tool wagon looking at the white wall where the ice met the grey sky. Behind him the train was long and heavy carrying steel rails and big transformer cores. The engine was working hard throwing out a lot of smoke that settled on the ice like a guide line.We are entering the permafrost zone Kael said, stepping out of the workshop with his thermal testing tool. The ice under us is stable. It is very cold. If we pour metal onto this surface it will brea