Eli ran the retrieval cable through a folded cloth so slowly that the technician reached the end of the route drawing before he reached the first splice mark. A raised strand would catch the weave. Dirt could hide a cut. He stopped at each place where the cable had rubbed during the descent, opened the cloth, and looked with the lamp held across rather than down onto it.
The work gave him something present to trust. The cable was where his fingers said it was. A mark did not move because he remembered it differently. When the offered image rose in the edge of his attention, bright and intimate, he told Tessa and kept his hands still until she acknowledged. The image remained unverified. His fatigue had not become a different condition because the task mattered more now.
The technician checked his inspection against the earlier descent record. The line had carried a test weight through the passage and had been operated locally at the winch. The manual release had been demonstrated. Those results remained useful. None had included the bent guide now behind Mira’s shoulder, a damaged mount under an indirect surge, or the load path with the second support holding a shifted frame.
