“Dex and I were just at the ISP.” Pol spoke quickly once they were both back in Ellis’s room in Wegener. “Dex has the pattern and the processing equipment. Everything we need. Isn’t that wonderful?”

Pol was all grins, and Ellis wanted to join in, to be a part of the celebration, but his heart wasn’t there. Part of him was still back with Sol, still thinking about God. His deflated backpack was on the floor, empty. He’d never refilled it. Pol blathered on about the details of how he finagled the deal. While Pol talked, Ellis noticed one of the cans of Dinty Moore stew. The battered container sat upside down on the illuminated table next to the bed. He must have put it there the night before. He’d brought four, but had only put two in his pack when he’d left the time machine. Didn’t think he’d need more. Looking back, Ellis had only expected to be gone a few hours, but that can had been in his pack for more than five weeks. It looked just like its sister can and probably tasted the same.

“I want to go see Pax,” Ellis said.

Pol looked annoyed at having such a wonderful victory monologue interrupted. “We don’t know where Pax is.”

“I want to go to Pax’s home. If Pax isn’t there, I’ll speak with Alva or Vin.”

“Fine, but we still have one more appointment to make.”

“Why?” Ellis found himself annoyed. “I’ve spent the last week blindly going wherever you wanted because Warren needed the pattern, but you have that now. I think I’ve earned a vacation.”

“And you can start it tomorrow,” Pol said. “But right now we have an invitation to tour Subduction Zone 540 as the honored guests of the Geomancy Institute.”

“But we have the pattern, right? So why—”

“I worked very hard to get this invitation. GI is notorious for its secrecy. No one who isn’t an initiate is ever granted access to the low zones. They keep the coords a secret. It’s easier to explore space than penetrate the low zones where the geomancers do their magic. It would be a terrible insult to turn them down and horribly embarrassing to me as Chief Councilor.”

Ellis looked longingly at the can of stew.

“Listen, we won’t stay long. I’m sure the geomancers don’t want us around anyway. We’ll pop in, look around, and then say our goodbyes. After that, I’ll help you look for Pax—okay?”

“Right afterward?”

“Absolutely.”

Ellis frowned but nodded.

“Wonderful.” Pol drew out the Port-a-Call. “This should be most interesting. I’ve never been to the low zones—like I mentioned, no one outside the Faith of Astheno really has—and Sub Zone 540 I’m told is the center of everything. I’m also told it’s warm. Ready?”

The Geomancy Institute looked nothing like the rest of Hollow World. In one week Ellis had seen Olympus Mons, stood on the surface of Mars, looked up from the greatest depths of the ocean, visited the oldest remaining ruins of humanity, and traveled to a planet in another galaxy. All of it paled when compared with Subduction Zone 540. The best way Ellis could describe it was like walking into a Wagnerian epic vision of Nidavelir—the steel mill of the gods—beautiful in its hellish horror of spraying molten stone whose spiderweb entrails formed erratic patterns. These infant rock entanglements became the girders and smokestack-silhouettes of an organic industry built on the bank of a volcanic River Styx. Lava falls spilled into glowing seas from which gas blew bubbles and choked Ellis’s new lungs, making him nauseous. The hair on his arms recoiled from the bristling heat as if he’d just stepped into a preheated oven. His ears were attacked by chest-thumping booms of what could only be a giant hammer beating on the anvil of the world.

Strong hands hauled him inside an illuminated walkway.

The pounding became muffled, but more important Ellis could breathe, although his eyes continued to tear too badly to see much except blurry lights.

“Welcome to the Geomancy Institute,” someone shouted over the pounding. “I’m Geo-12, your tour guide. You’ll have to bear with me. I’ve never done this before. We’ve never had visitors.”

Ellis felt a gloved hand take his and shake—the first firm grip he’d felt.

“You must be Ellis Rogers, then—honored to meet you.”

“Why did you give me such exposed coords?” He heard Pol ask, his tone angry.

“Everyone ports in on the rail their first time here. Initiates are required to use the rail port for their first year, and to find their way to the tunnels on their own. It fosters respect, and serves as a reminder of the very real dangers of working the sublevels. Up in the litho you use terms like coreor asthenoas if they are mythical things, like dragons or Hades, but down here they’re our noisy neighbors.”

Ellis wiped his eyes for the fourth time and was starting to see again, although he still winced as if he were cutting a bushel of onions. Almost everything was a smear of brilliant and fluid yellow light.

“Follow me,” Geo-12 told them.

“Can’t see too well,” Ellis said.

“Don’t need to. Just walk forward. I’ll let you know if you’re about to fall into a pool of liquid peridotite. Almost never happens anymore.”

“Almost?”

He heard a chuckle.

Ellis moved forward, his feet landing on a smooth glassy surface. As they walked, the pounding grew softer and the air fresher.

“The real danger down here is the gas—as you already noticed. Using portal-technology, we can create worm-tunnels to move around. Really the only way to do it. Nothing can stop the heat down here. But being in the tunnel you aren’t really hereanymore. You’re in an alternate here,looking through the opening at the churning, beating heart of the world.”

Ellis opened his eyes and froze.

They were standing within a hellscape on a transom of light. All around them was lava.

“Better than coffee, huh?” Geo-12 grinned at him. “Been working down here for centuries, and this walk through the Sea of Gehenna is always an eye opener. Don’t worry. We haven’t had a tunnel failure yet. Everything down at this level runs off the Big D, and nothing’s going to interrupt her.”

“Her?” Ellis asked, surprised at hearing a gender-based pronoun.

“The big lady herself.” Geo-12 gestured around them. “The planet—Mother Earth. She’s one mammoth, naturally occurring Dynamo generating forty-four terawatts of energy. These tunnels, which are just a series of elongated portals, are permanently dedicated. Haven’t been shut off in more than a thousand years.” Geo-12 stopped to face them, giving Ellis a good look at the geomancer.

Geo-12 wasn’t like everyone else. The lines were subtle, but there was a variation. Just as Sol had appeared more feminine, Geo-12 appeared a tad more masculine. Ellis wondered if it was the result of twelve being an earlier model, or if they made different patterns for geomancers, suggesting they were bred for this. Their guide wore a long gray coat of a thick material that might have been leather or even rubber. What looked to be safety glasses rested idly on Geo-12’s head.

“This is the infrastructure of Hollow World. It’s what keeps all those people above us alive. Old Gaia, she’s a living thing, you know—not a tame lion, if you get my meaning. And she don’t much care about us at all. She does her own thing: percolating, blowing bubbles, rolling over. She’s moody—has her quiet moments and gets irritable, like anyone. We’re all the little pixies that whisper in her ear and try to calm the old lady down when she gets riled.”

“And how do you manage that?” Pol asked.

“The earth is a giant pressure cooker that needs to release her heat. We aim to predict where the pressure will build and then relieve it before it goes pop. Another way of thinking about it is, we help the old lady fart so she doesn’t have a bowel movement that erases Hollow World or at least rearranges it beyond recognition.”