Iron Seas 03 - Riveted

the magma chamber”—he slapped his hands together with a loud crack! —“and those explosive charges are being laid in the ice tunnels. But what am I not accounting for?”
    David tried to catch up. “You want to cause an eruption?”
    “Yes! The pressure required, the amount of ice, it’s all calculated. We just need to make certain it will blow at the right time. If it goes without me in the capsule, it’s all for nothing.”
    “The capsule on the tower?” Resembling a vertical submersible, David recalled. A borehole had been drilled beneath it.
    “Yes, yes. It will drop in!”
    With Paolo inside the capsule. Inside a suit. David shook his head. Did the man intend to pilot the capsule through molten rock, propelled along by steam? Even surrounded by steel, he’d be dead within moments. Or did he believe the quacker scientists who claimed that a magical Underworld lay below the earth’s crust? Or even more absurd—that a primeval world existed at the center of Earth?
    He looked to Lorenzo, who was staring at him with bullet-hard eyes. Don’t express any doubt , he remembered.
    David couldn’t doubt anything yet. First he had to understand what Paolo wanted to do. “For what purpose do you intend to use the capsule?”
    Paolo’s brows lowered. He frowned at his son. “Did you not tell him?”
    “I haven’t had the opportunity,” Lorenzo said mildly.
    “We will take that opportunity now. Where’s my coat?” With his hands in his pockets, he looked around for it. “We’ll go out and show him.”
    “Show me?”
    “The tower, the capsule. Look.” Paolo waved to the slate board, then turned to Lorenzo, who held out a pair of trousers.
    Crossing to the wall, David studied the chalk drawing. Two circles each took up one half of the board, one smaller than the other. On the larger circle, a small tower had been drawn on the upper arc. A line spiraled outward from the tower and around the larger circle, until the spiral reached a distance halfway across the board. The trajectory changed, and the spiral continued inward around thesmaller circle, drawing closer with each revolution until it finally met the circle’s edge. With disbelief, David read the labels beneath the two circles:
    EARTH. MOON.
    “I’ll ride in the capsule across the æther, and build a new home on the lunar surface.” Beside him, Paolo was looking up at the board with a brilliant smile. “Isn’t it marvelous?”

Chapter Eleven
    Annika spent most of the afternoon wandering through the chambers and tunnels. Källa had informed her that she could move through the camp as she liked, and Annika took full advantage of it. Still, she found little in the way of weapons or to use as a means of escape. The furnace could create a possible distraction, as could piercing the pipes that carried heated water through the chambers, warming the air—a safer method of heating in the enclosed spaces than multiple stoves would be, unless the water flooded everything.
    She paused once, frozen as a small tremor shook the ground. A muffled cracking sounded from deep below. Annika was accustomed to quakes, but not while walking through tunnels of snow. She hurried outside.
    In the clearing, she was relieved to see that none of the tunnels had collapsed. The sky was clear overhead; the airship had already gone. She hoped that Lorenzo kept his promise and sent Phatéon ’s cargo to Vik, but didn’t trust that he would. Why give them food then threaten to kill them all? He could just as easily lie, say thecargo had been delivered, and she and David would have no way to know.
    Escape was still their best option. Of course, now she had to wonder whether Källa would go, too. Annika couldn’t imagine leaving her. But if her sister was determined to stay, she might have to.
    She circled the clearing, aware of the watchful eyes of the guards. The balloons were tethered, she saw, but not locked. Good. She paused at the entrance to the laborer’s quarters, then moved on when a guard approached her, frowning.
    Källa soon joined her with a fussy Olaf in tow, tugging at her hand and trying to get away. She let the boy go and they watched him run for the nearest mound of snow. Within seconds, his coat was on the ground.
    Her sister sighed. “I don’t know how he opens the buckles so quickly.”
    Especially while wearing mittens. Annika could only shake her head. Of all the roles she’d imagined Källa in when she’d found her—adventurer,