In Austin’s professional opinion, working in geostationary orbit had one clear advantage over working on the ground.
There was no wind to blow away his chalk lines.
Down in the valleys of the Azure Cloud Sect, setting a straight reference line required four stakes, three cinder blocks, and constant watch for mountain goats that liked to chew yellow mason’s twine. Up here, thirty-six thousand miles above the planet, an unweighted chalk line would drift in a perfectly straight line until sunlight nudged it aside weeks later.
Austin stood on the observation platform of Dreadnought Foundry Unit 01. His heat-resistant work boots rested on the deck, and twin six-foot shock-absorbing lanyards clipped his safety harness to a silver-steel I-beam.
A precision laser transit sat on a motorized three-axis tripod before him. Austin had built the brass-and-quartz instrument in the dreadnought’s machine shop. Its green laser and micrometer scale could measure angles to three decimal places.
Beside him, Xuan Ming stood in his pressure suit, gripping a ten-foot survey rod with both hands. His white foreman’s hard hat had been sealed directly to his neck ring with aerospace-grade silicone. The yellow Monthly Safety Champion star caught the harsh light of the twin suns.
