Air is free
The Charter of Air says nobody pays for air, so nobody does. The Terraces make it, the Foundry's pumps keep the sea out of it, and the Assembly argues about everything else.
Fathom Ring · CityLab Ride 02 · year 41 of the Seal
The Hollow Almanac
Five domes, one ring, nine hundred metres of water overhead.
Tethys Hollow is five glass domes on the lip of a trench, nine hundred metres down. The people who live there call themselves Tethyans. Most of them were born below and have never seen the sky. A few of them think that is a shame. Most of them think the sky sounds draughty.
The Hollow
Tethyans, and why nothing is a box
The domes stand in a ring on a rock plateau, joined by a tube of pressure glass with a railway inside it. The train runs round all day. It has to, because all night is also all day down here.
Everything in the Hollow is built for pressure. Buildings are spheres, spirals and ribbed shells, windows are round, and wealth is metal: green bronze ribs, brass bands, copper chimneys. Nothing is a box. A box is just a sphere that has given up.
Tethyans count years from the First Seal, the night the first dome held. This is the year 41. A day is one turn of the crown lamps, lamps up to lamps down, and the train keeps the minutes.
The years
Forty-one years since the First Seal
- Year 0
The First Seal
A survey crew from up top sealed the first dome, Hollow Gate, out of bulkheads from a shipyard that was closing down. The shipyard's numbers are still stamped on them. Fourteen people slept there the first night. Nobody slept much.
- Year 3
The Foundry is lit
The second dome went up beside the black smoker, a chimney of rock that breathes out water hot enough to melt lead. The Foundry drinks its heat and pulls copper out of its smoke. Every rib of every dome since was poured there.
- Year 7
The Kelp Terraces
Grow lamps over stepped tanks of kelp gave the Hollow its own food and most of its own air. Before that, both came down in tins.
- Year 11
The Quiet Years
The company up top that paid for the Hollow stopped sending the supply sub. For three years nothing came down. The Foundry piped its heat to the Terraces, and the Terraces fed the Foundry. That deal is called the Warm Bargain, and it still holds: the first cut of every harvest goes to the Foundry canteen.
- Year 14
The Assembly
Nautilus Spire was built in the middle of everything, and the Assembly first met in its Shell. Anyone who has lived a year below may speak. Its first law was the Charter of Air: nobody in the Hollow pays for air.
- Year 17
Lanternfold
The glassblowers built homes like a bunch of glass grapes, one pressure sphere per family, joined by short brass tubes. Tam's teacher blew most of them. Tam will tell you so.
- Year 22
The Dimming
The crown lamp over Lanternfold failed for nine days. Families hung lanterns at their doors so the lamp tenders could find them in the dark. Everyone was found. Every door still has a lantern, and every lantern is lit.
- Year 26
The Ring opens
Before the ring, going to another dome meant a hard suit and a long walk on the seabed, or a seat in Brine's sub if Brine was in a good mood. The Foundry wound the field coils all the same way round, so the train only goes one way. The Assembly has voted eleven times on whether that way is sunwise. There is no sun to check.
- Year 26
The train comes down
The same year, the Hollow ordered a Shoreline Limited train set from the yards at Calder and had it lowered through the moon pool at Hollow Gate, one car at a time. The longest car cleared the rim by about a metre. Ossa still talks about the metre.
- Year 41
Now
The supply sub comes regularly again. The notice boards are full, because the Hollow has more small jobs than people to do them. A small robot on treads from up top has bought a ticket for the ring.
The ring
A railway with one opinion
The Fathom Ring is one closed loop of railway, 5.5 km round, inside a tube of pressure glass. A field coil clamps round the tube every 14 m. The coils pulse one after another as the train goes by, so from outside it looks like a string of glowing fish swimming round the plateau.
At each dome the line leaves the ring, swings in through a pressure gate, runs round the district on a viaduct, stops at the platform and swings back out. There are no switches and no crossings. The train never reverses. Tethyans say the ring has only one opinion, and it is a good one.
The timetable is the Hollow's clock. When Seven is waiting in a dome, the train hurries round the far side of the ring where nobody can see it and comes in at a proper pace. Nobody minds. The train is never late, and that is all anyone asked of it.
Out on the plateau
The Old Lady of the Trench
Out on the plateau inside the ring, about eighty metres off the line by the Vent Foundry, something big lies half-sunk in the sand: six armoured arms, two red eyes, seams that glow. Brine found her in the year 31, after the drivers kept reporting that something out there moved when the train went by.
Nobody knows who built her, or when, or why. She does not come any closer. She does not go away. When a train comes by she lifts her arms and reaches after it, and when it has gone she settles back into the sand. She has done this for every train for ten years. The Tethyans have decided she is waving.
Seven has met one of her kind before, up top, in the west sink of a dry valley, and he had to power that one down. He gives this one a wide berth all the same. The Ventwrights would like her copper. The Sounders would like to study her. The Assembly has voted to leave her alone. She was not consulted.
Pearls and trade
Free air, slow pearls, brass doorframes
Hollow pearls
Small things are paid for in Hollow pearls: an errand, a hot meal, a lantern shade. They are grown on oyster racks in the lowest tanks of the Kelp Terraces, and each one takes years, so there are never too many. The Archive at Nautilus Spire keeps the count, and Quell can tell you who owns how many. Quell will not, though.
Metal is wealth
Big things are counted in metal. Copper, brass and bronze come out of the Foundry, and a family's savings are often the brass bands round its own doorframe. It is very hard to lose a doorframe.
Trade with up top
Everything that goes up or comes down passes through the moon pool at Hollow Gate. The Hollow sends up smoker copper, a little silver and Lanternfold glass. It gets back medicine, seeds, books, spare parts and the mail, which is always late and always welcome.
The notice boards
Every platform has a notice board, and Sora keeps all five honest. People pin up jobs they need doing, and whoever does them is paid in pearls. Most jobs mean a ride on the ring, which is good for the train and better for gossip.
Factions
Seven ways to argue in a small space
The Assembly
Speak once, then listen.
Not quite a government and not quite a meeting. When the bell rings in the Assembly Shell, anyone who has lived a year below may come and speak. Sora cries the notices round the domes, and Quell writes down everything, including the parts people wish Quell would not.
The Gate Compact
Everything comes through the gate.
The dockhands, divers and clerks who run the moon pool and the trade with up top. Ossa runs the Compact. The Compact would like more trade with up top. The rest of the Hollow would like to be asked first.
The Greenhands
Lamps on, lamps off.
The kelp farmers of the Terraces, who feed the Hollow and make most of its air. They are patient people, because kelp is a patient crop. They do not hurry for anyone, except at harvest, when they do not stop for anyone.
The Lampwrights
A dark doorway is a sad doorway.
The guild of lamp tenders and lantern-lighters. It belongs to no one dome: its members look after every light in the Hollow, and every lamp has a name in their books. They began on the Terraces, among the grow lamps, and they were the ones who walked Lanternfold in the Dimming.
The Ventwrights
If it hisses, call us. If it bangs, run.
Smelters and pump engineers. They pour the ribs, keep the pumps that keep the sea outside, and send warm water round the ring. They know the Hollow needs them and they are polite enough to mention it only at every meeting.
The Glasshouse
Perfect is just enough.
The glassblowers of Lanternfold. They make the pressure panes, the homes, and the lantern shades that go up to the surface and come back as pearls. A Glasshouse pane is checked forty times. The forty-first check is the sea.
The Sounders
Down is a direction.
The handful of sub pilots who go out past the domes, down into the trench and back. They map it, bring back what they find, and tell stories about the rest. Brine is the best of them and the loudest, which in a group this small are the same job.
The Rising Question
Some Tethyans, the Risers, think the Hollow should one day go back up and live in the light. The Stayers think the light is overrated and the pressure is home. The Assembly takes the question up every few years and puts it down again, gently, like a full cup.
Which way is sunwise
The spiral towers of Nautilus Spire wind one way and the ring runs the other, or the same way, depending on who is asked. With no sun to go by, the Assembly has voted on it eleven times. The towers have not moved.
The domes
Five domes, read from the platform down
In the ride, each of these pages opens in the almanac (press B) once Seven has taken the lift down to that dome's streets. Here they are all open, in the order the train reaches them from Hollow Gate.
Sealed in the year 0
Hollow Gate
The first dome. Mind the gap and the submarines.
- Floor
- 900 m down
- Dome
- 256 m across, 92 m high
- People
- about 420
- Makes
- Trade, mail, dives, docking
- Needs
- Food from the Terraces, copper from the Foundry
Hollow Gate is the oldest dome and the Hollow's front door. It was built out of a closing shipyard's bulkheads, and their numbers are still stamped on the walls. Tethyans touch the oldest of them for luck. The oldest of them is getting very shiny.
In the middle of the floor the moon pool opens straight into the sea. The air in the dome holds the water down, so the pool sits flat and still, and subs come up through it like seals. Brine's little brass sub is usually there. So, usually, is Brine.
The streets
Ten walks run out from the moon pool like the spokes of a wheel, named for the shipyard: Bulkhead, Ballast, Hatch, Sounding, Keel, Anchor, Lockfast, Tidewater, Rivet and Fathom. The dockhands live closest to the pool so they can hear the sub come in.
The Moon Pool
A round hole in the floor, thirty-two metres across, with the whole ocean underneath it. Railings were put round it in the year 2, after the first time somebody forgot.
Trade
Everything up and down passes through here. The Gate Compact counts it in, counts it out, and takes a small cut in pearls for the counting.
Sealed in the year 7
Kelp Terraces
Green by day, gold all night.
- Floor
- 894 m down
- Dome
- 300 m across, 104 m high
- People
- about 310
- Makes
- Food, air, kelp butter, seed spores, pearls
- Needs
- Heat from the Foundry, lamps from the Lampwrights
The Kelp Terraces feed the Hollow and make most of its air. Stepped glass tanks climb in rings under rows of grow lamps, and tall seed-pod granaries stand among them. The kelp is green under the lamps by day and glows faintly gold all night. It does this on its own. Nobody taught it.
The air here is the best in the Hollow, and the Greenhands will tell you so. Taste it. It is green, somehow.
The streets
The walks are named for the crop: Frond, Holdfast, Lampbed, Kelpline, Greenwater, Spore, Tendril, Harvest, Bladder and Sunless. Sunless Walk is the oldest. It got its name before anyone thought to be cheerful.
The Grow Terraces
Three great stepped tanks in the middle of the dome, lamps over every step. The lowest tanks hold the oyster racks where Hollow pearls grow, very slowly, behind a sign asking people not to watch.
Trade
The Terraces sell food and air credit round the ring and grow the Hollow's pearls. Under the Warm Bargain the Foundry's heat comes in, and the first cut of every harvest goes out.
Sealed in the year 14
Nautilus Spire
The middle of everything.
- Floor
- 898 m down
- Dome
- 380 m across, 158 m high
- People
- about 900
- Makes
- The Assembly, the Archive, the school, the market
- Needs
- Everything, from everyone
Nautilus Spire is the civic dome and the biggest. Chambered towers wind up like shells round the Assembly Shell, a fluted vault on bronze ribs. The towers wind one way. Nobody agrees which way they are meant to turn.
The Hollow's Archive is here, and the school, and the busiest market on the ring. The Assembly meets in the Shell when the bell rings, and the whole dome goes quiet to listen, or loud to argue.
The streets
Its walks are Whorl, Chamber, Septum, Assembly, Spiral, Nacre, Siphon, Coil, Quorum and Shell. Quorum Walk is where people stand to be counted. Septum Walk is where they go when they lose.
The Assembly Hall
The Shell itself: a ribbed bronze vault with a bell in its crown. The bell came down from the closing shipyard with the first bulkheads. It rang for ships then. Now it rings for arguments.
Trade
The Spire makes nothing you can hold. It makes decisions, records and teachers, and it buys everything else. The market under the towers is where the domes swap what they make.
Sealed in the year 17
Lanternfold
Quiet, please. People live here.
- Floor
- 904 m down
- Dome
- 320 m across, 112 m high
- People
- about 1,200
- Makes
- Homes, pressure glass, lantern shades
- Needs
- Quiet, mostly. And sand for the glass
Lanternfold is where most Tethyans live. Its homes are pressure spheres on stilts, joined by short brass tubes, so the whole dome looks like a bunch of glass grapes with people in them. Each family has its own sphere. Each sphere has a lantern at the door.
Every lantern is lit, always, since the Dimming. A dark doorway is a sad doorway, and in Lanternfold it is also a reason for a neighbour to knock.
The streets
The walks are Grape, Bubble, Glasswort, Wick, Little Lamp, Cluster, Lowlight, Pearl, Hush and Cradle. Hush Walk has the most children. It is badly named.
The Lantern Tower
A chambered tower in the middle of the homes, where Nell keeps the spare lanterns and the lighters' log. From its top every lit door in Lanternfold can be counted, and Nell counts them every night.
Trade
The Glasshouse sells pressure panes to every dome and lantern shades up top, where people pay a great deal for glass made nine hundred metres down. It looks the same as any other glass. Nobody tells them.
Sealed in the year 3
Vent Foundry
The only warm place for a long way down.
- Floor
- 914 m down
- Dome
- 280 m across, 96 m high
- People
- about 380
- Makes
- Copper, brass, bronze, heat, pumps
- Needs
- Food from the Terraces, and for everyone to stop touching the pipes
The Vent Foundry stands on the edge of the trench beside the black smoker, lower than the other domes. It drinks the vent's heat through copper drums and chimneys and pulls metal out of its smoke. It is warm in here. It is the only warm place for a long way down.
Every rib of every dome was poured here, and the Ventwrights will mention it. They also run the pumps that keep the sea outside the glass, which is the one job in the Hollow that nobody else has ever offered to do.
The streets
The walks are Crucible, Smoker, Copper, Slag, Bellows, Vent, Sinter, Pumphouse, Ingot and Ember. Ember Walk is the warmest. Smoker Walk smells the worst. They are next to each other, and the rent is the same.
The Great Exchanger
The heart of the Foundry: a nest of copper drums where water from the smoker gives up its heat. It hums. When the copper starts to sing instead, Juno is already running.
Trade
The Foundry sells metal and heat round the ring and smoker copper up top. In return it eats very well, because of the Warm Bargain.
Visitors
A small robot with a ticket
The Hollow has had visitors from up top before: surveyors, buyers, a man who sold umbrellas and did not stay long. Seven is the first visitor on treads. He has a ticket, he does odd jobs for pearls, and he rides the train as if it were the best thing that ever happened to him. The Tethyans have decided he is right.
He also brought the cutting torch on his right arm, the one he cut chains with in the Shackled Prison. In the Hollow he uses it to weld things shut: weeping seams in the dome glass, split heat pipes, buckled stilts. Every repair helps somebody. Every repair also costs somebody something, and in a place this small they all know where Seven lives. He does not live anywhere. That has not stopped the complaints.
Mote comes too: a little helper drone that points the way when Seven asks, and sniffs out lost things when he gets close. Nobody in the Hollow is sure who it belongs to. Mote seems sure.
Tethys Hollow and everyone in it are made up. The domes, the line, the people and their jobs are in the ride; this almanac fills in the history, the factions and the trade round them. The game's own almanac and the people's answers to "Ask about the Hollow" are written from the same file, so the ride and this page always say the same thing.