Twenty-five tiny fractions of an inch above the iron-hard metal collar, human building met the unforgiving reality of deep-space empty pocket.
At this height, the gap between the five-hundred-ton Harmonic Core and its mounting base was less than an inch.
The four bronze pilot pins held the quartz monolith perfectly plumb, its huge weight floating upon the timed together pistons of the twelve high-pressure rams.
Yet beneath that suspended mass lay the single component upon which the survival of the planet depended.
It wasn’t forged from iron-hard metal. It wasn’t woven from enchanted silver wire, nor was it carved from ancient dragon bone.
It was a nonstop, one-hundred-and-fifty-foot ring of jet-black Viton fluoropolymer rubber. It measured exactly twenty-five point four tiny fractions of an inch in cross-sectional width.
Giles Croft crouched on the staging deck, his knees resting against a clean rubber crouching pad, a high-intensity check wand in his left hand.
The bright white beam lit up the care dovetail groove machined into the upper face of the iron-hard metal collar.
