We hurried to a door, which he opened, and we entered a small, well-lit room. After he closed the door behind us, he opened another one just ahead. This little room let us view the curling orange steam through thick windows.
The hole the steam exited seemed vast, many hundreds of feet across. The view was breathtaking.
The Inventor took off his mask. “The air is good here.” Once I took off my mask, he pointed at the orange steam. “The magma is many hundreds of feet below us. We wear special suits to venture further. Water drops to our generator beneath us; the magma’s heat turns the water to steam, which powers the mechanism.”
“So what is the problem?”
“Magma steam is corrosive. The combination of intense heat and corroding effect is destroying the drill tubes and pilings.”
I stared a
