XXXVIThe tunnel entrance smoked like the muzzle of a musket as Finn and then Diane flopped out of it. Although it was the middle of the night, the sky was as bright as midday: a raging red and orange that cast deep shadows around them. Flames from the fires of Engn. Clutching each other, spluttering and coughing, they began to scramble up the side of the pit.
Diane made it to the top first and hauled Finn up after her. They stood beneath the walls. The air was ash and smoke. The ground shook and shivered beneath them. A great ball of flame boiled off from the machine into the night sky, its heat scorching on Finn's face. All through the long crawl the insistent whining sound had grown in intensity and pitch, as if something were spinning faster and faster. Now, out in the open air, it scr
