The lower building drydock of the Aethelgard echoed with the rhythmic hiss of high-pressure star-fire welders and the deep, ringing ring of silver-steel sledgehammers.
Chief Engineer Szabo stood on a rolling overhead frame thirty feet above the engine trench, wearing heavy baked-clay heat-resistant coveralls and an aligned welding helmet. In his gloved hands, he held a potion-made power-coil torch. Its nozzle spat a pinpoint flame of white-gold spirit fire.
Down on the trench floor, Arthur Vance worked beside the four-meter sphere of [Primordial Solar-Purified Amber]. Arthur used a diamond-tipped sonic chisel. He flaked thin, rainbow-bright wafers from the amber, transferring them into a potion-made melting crucible. Beside Arthur, Pip perched atop an anvil on all three golden talons, supervising the work with intense avian scrutiny, sometimes letting out a perky, sharp whistle—clack-peep!—whenever Szabo struck a bolt with particular enthusiasm.
“Pass up the second batch of liquid amber, Vance!” Szabo yelled through his helmet comm. “The keel power-coil channels are at twelve hundred degrees! If we don’t apply the coating while the silver-steel lattice is swelled, the crystal-clear bond won’t take!”
Arthur lifted a high-pressure air-powered applicator filled with molten amber glaze. He stepped onto the high-pressure lift. He climbed to the ship’s load-bearing keel.
