Ivara Quill dropped the rusted iron ladder into the lower weir chamber, her single hand moving deliberately from rung to rung, her land-mapper’s eyes checking every load-bearing seam in the vaulted dark rock stonework. The descent was a familiar test of physical leverage. Without her left arm to balance her torso against the shaking of the ladder, she had to lock her right elbow against the outer rail with every two steps, using her hips to absorb the shuddering impact of the foundation stones.
The chamber seventy feet below ground was flooded with a thick, warm mist that condensed on the cold stone arches. Then it ran down in clear rivulets, washing away decades of piled up coal grease, sulfur grime, and dried lime dust. The air was heavy. It smelled of boiled river moss, hot stone oil. The sharp, metal tang of a put out spark arc. For twelve long years, this chamber had been the heat-powered crucible of the southern valley. There, the cold mountain current was forced through high-pressure jackets to cool the signal lines feeding the Star tower’s central lens.
She reached the heavy oak pipe hub table where Urel was checking the backup liquid silver gauges by the green light of a hooded copper lantern. The former technician had wiped his glasses clean with a strip of dry cotton, his breath misting in the humid air, his grease-stained index finger tracing the engraved brass scale of the differential pressure gauge.
