The deep dark had a texture. It was not an absence of sensation; it was a fullness.
Vreth moved through Tunnel 7-South with his eyes half-closed, letting the stone speak to his skin. The air pressure here, four sub-levels down, was heavy enough to press against the eardrums of a surface-dweller like water. To a Pallid, it was an embrace. The rock above them weighed millions of tons, and that weight translated into a constant, complex symphony of compression and release.
He walked barefoot, his soles reading the subtle variations in the floor. Granite here. A vein of quartz there, humming with a high, sharp frequency.
"Watch your step on the decline," Sergeant Marra said. Her voice was too loud, too human, echoing harshly off the curved walls.
She walked three paces ahead, swinging a heavy military oil lamp. The yellow light threw leaping shadows against the curved rock, making the tunnel look nervous. She was human. Mid-thirties. Standard patrol kit.
