The end cap started to bend under the pressure where the rivet failed, and a jet of steam forced its way out. The pressure began to drop. One hundred and eighty gallons of water flashed to steam, and the disaster now became a cataclysm. In the next moment, the end cap and a volley of broken rivets headed west at high velocities. Two of the rivets connected with workers standing on the outer fringe of the workers. One of them was Pietro.
The boiler tank itself, sans end cap, headed east in what later science historians would describe with gruesome glee as the launch of the first down-time built steam rocket engine. It crashed out the east end of the wagon and into the steam engine housing on the crane deck, smashed the engine to junk, and carried it forward as it burst out the other end of the housing.
The tank was finally stopped when it ran into the bottom of the crane derrick assembly. This was also smashed, breaking the derrick itself free of the assembly and its various cables. All of the remaining impetus of the tank was transferred to the derrick, and it was launched like a missile. All accompanied by the sound of grinding, crushing, tearing, tortured metal.
The last bomb didn’t explode. The gunpowder inside it has been a bit damp, so when the flame reached it, only the part nearest the wooden plug had exploded; just enough to blow the plug out. That in turn allowed the flames inside the firebox much better access to the gunpowder. This created the second rocket engine of the disaster.
The log shot out of the disintegrating firebox and through a hole blown in the wagon side by a firebox brick only a fragment of an instant before. Not being in the slightest bit aerodynamic, it looped crazily through the air until it hit the ground—not once but twice—hard enough to skip. Its flight ended as it jammed into the side of the existing hospital building, sputtering flames issuing from the hole in one end until the gunpowder at last was exhausted.
It might have been a subject of humor, if anyone had known about it, and if the collateral damage had not been so high.
But the steam—the steam was worst of all.
In the instant that the boiler end cap separated from the rest of the tank, one hundred eighty gallons of water under pressure expanded to almost two hundred thousand gallons of live steam at 327 degrees Fahrenheit and burst out into the construction site. The sudden release of the steam under pressure demolished the wagon, which sent more splinters and spears sailing.
The coals of fire from the firebox splashed out. Many of them sailed quite a distance, some as far as a quarter of a mile.
The walls and roof of the wagon survived long enough to channel most of the steam to the west. It instantly engulfed the screaming and moaning wounded, and those survivors who were trying to help them. They all experienced very short but very intense moments of additional pain, as their skin was scalded, as their eyes began to boil in their sockets, and as their lungs were seared from the inside when they uniformly took a gasp to scream in torment.
The few men standing dropped to the ground among their fellows, to writhe as every nerve under their exposed skin fired in excruciating pain. One very strong individual remained standing a few moments longer, raising his hands to clasp his throat as his vocal cords and trachea spasmed in shock and agony, blisters already forming in the delicate internal tissues. But within a very few heartbeats, he joined the rest of the victims in their fallen ranks.
From the perspective of the sufferers, the agony lasted forever. In reality, seared and blistered lungs quit functioning very quickly, and the injured men’s hearts ceased laboring moments later. In just a matter of a couple of short minutes, they were dead. Motionless. All of them. Without exception.
The bodies lay there, under the cloud of deadly steam, as the first few dazed outlying survivors and neighbors began appearing in the nearby streets.
Chapter 49
Ciclope and Pietro had slunk around the side of the work site and slipped out the main gate just as most of the workmen began arriving. It was easy to then turn and stand on the outskirts at the rear of the crowd, for all the world as if they had just arrived.
So far things had gone well, Ciclope thought. He was awaiting the explosion with evil anticipation.
BOOOOOOOM-BOOM!
* * *
Gustav, Kristina and Ulrik had mounted to the top of the western steps of the palace when it happened.
BOOOOOOOM-BOOM!
The sound echoed from the shadow to the west. Every head in sight jerked that direction. Something long and dark rose and pinwheeled across the sky toward them, to fall with an audible crash.
The Marine guards jumped up the steps en masse to surround the emperor’s party. Ljungberg and Captain Beaton were both urging the emperor to enter the palace, but he resisted them as he stared to the west to see a plume starting to rise over the city.