The four traction winches flanking the base of the Spire were the largest clockwork machines ever built by mortal hands.
Each winch stood forty feet high, powered by a dedicated high-pressure underground steam turbine fed directly from the deep mantle taps.
Their cable drums, cast from solid nickel-chromium iron by Master Borin’s master founders, were fifteen feet in width, grooved to hold twenty-five miles of nonstop two-inch braided load-bearing steel wire rope.
To ensure that all four corners of the five-hundred-ton core rose at exactly the same rate, Giles had linked the four winches through a linked clockwork world-size governor system.
A single master synchronizer shaft, four inches thick and forged from hardened alloy steel, ran beneath the concrete end-post floor, mechanically locking the spinning speed of all four drums.
If one winch slowed down by half a revolution per minute, the clockwork governor automatically bled steam to the other three. That kept the lift platform level within a fraction of a degree.
“Governor lash is three thousandths of an inch,” Giles said, crawling out from beneath the master gear housing and wiping black lithium grease from his knuckles with an oily rag.
“Toby, check the oil levels in the main edge boxes. I don’t want a dry bearing seizing at Mile Six.”
