Chonker drove the first anchor into the iron heart of a dead brown dwarf, three light-years beyond the weak Perseus shelf.
The anchor was not a single giant block. Tie Kuang had divided it into twenty smaller grips, each set at a different angle. Cables from the grips met at a frame fitted with load gauges.
“One grip slips, the others take its share,” he explained. “We lose capacity, but we don’t lose the whole line.”
Austin checked the drawing against the machine. “And every gauge has its own power supply?”
“Two. Plus a mechanical needle that works if both fail.”
“Good. Test it.”
The cable-laying barge paid out a line of braided star-jade. It crossed the folded lane between Perseus and the brown dwarf and locked onto the anchor frame. Back on the test section, crews connected the other end to six jack groups.
Tian Luo worked beside the cable clamps in borrowed canvas pants. He had refused a title, so Xuan Ming had written VISITOR on his hard hat.
