The winch arrived in pieces that people could carry.
A complete recovery assembly would not pass the narrow turn below the opened door. The surface crew separated its drum, frame, and supply, marked the joins, and sent them down with handlers who could withdraw before the deeper task began. Eli helped clear the turning space. Ordinary effort made his shoulders ache. He welcomed the ache because he understood what had caused it.
The independent supply came last. Tessa watched it set down beyond the medical path, then asked the operator where its exhaustion threshold lay. A machine that could pull them out by spending the district’s evacuation reserve was only another version of assigning an unseen person to carry the gap.
The surface operator read the schedule aloud. The accepted supply could support the planned retrieval and a bounded second pass under the tested load. It could not remain running indefinitely. The emergency district allocation remained separate. If the bridge required longer than this, the plan would need revision before use.
Juno entered the duration beside the winch operator’s position.
Sera took the physical signal relay. Another scout accepted backup from a position where the flags could be seen around the recess. The independent communication line would stay active, but the retrieval could not rely on the old network or a distant voice arriving at exactly the right second.
