They didn’t get much further before the smell was so bad it began to make Dav’s nose numb. Even their guide wrinkled his nose at times, yet Tarkus seemed almost immune to it. He kept looking around, taking everything in.
Dav had to admit that their surroundings were damn impressive. The corridor had opened out into an immense room containing the chutes. Rather than being lined up along the walls, as Dav had always pictured, they were massive square openings in the floor, each ten metres on a side. They had safety barriers, of a sort, but they barely reached halfway up Dav’s thigh. They were a token gesture rather than any actual use.
Yet the workers didn’t seem bothered by it. Those driving vehicles had them going far faster than out in the corridors, approaching the pits at break
