With the live breath flow tests complete and signed in Yul’s ledger, Vaska Ren took a three-foot iron prizing bar in his uninjured right hand, braced the bandaged heel of his four-fingered left palm against the limestone rim of the first recess. Then he wedged the chisel tip beneath the mortar bed of the shattered bronze socket base.
In any earlier year of his two decades as Chief Judge, the next step after a seal failure would have been automatic. Clear the room of unchartered witnesses, pack every broken bronze ring into lead-lined Court chests under triple wax seals, and classify the failure as a state secret so no outside school could study how the rig worked. Secrecy had always been the Court’s first line of defense whenever its certainty produced a disaster.
Today, as the old lime mortar cracked and the last embedded half of the socket housing came free with a gritty scrape, Vaska lifted the heavy bronze piece out of the hole and laid it openly on the flat stone beside the test lens tripod.
He tapped the exposed inside of the bronze casting with his forefinger and gestured for Masters Bren and Yul to step closer.
