The vibration climbed through the steel plating of the rig floor, up the soles of Orvek's heavy boots, and settled directly in his teeth.
It was the wrong frequency. He knew what shale felt like under a diamond-edge rotary bit. He knew basalt. He knew the dense, unforgiving grind of compressed granite at three kilometers depth. This was none of them. The vibration was too clean. Too smooth. It lacked the erratic, stuttering resistance of natural stone giving way to industrial torque.
"Pressure spike," the operator called out over the mechanical roar. The man was leaning over the primary console, one hand hovering above the emergency brake. "We're up a third on the drive shaft. It's not breaking."
