At twelve-fifteen on the twenty-first day, Ada Morland walked into the Harrowby town depot, her heavy wool work coat buttoned over her overalls, her lunchbox under her arm. Jo Saye and Imran Bell were waiting by the tracking data bench beside the Courtesy Arch. It was humming with its steady, cerulean soft glow.
On the steel workbench lay the transit manifest, drafted in strict accordance with the seven working axioms of the Courtesy Bridge. Pella had sent the requirements across the slate an hour before. The check of the washroom tracking data and the fractured mill valve was purely test. No manual torque was allowed. And Ada was to remain under the constant watch of Sister Merrow.
Imran tuned the payload scale. Ada set her tool satchel on the brass plate. A high-care Bourdon-tube dial gauge reading up to two hundred pounds of pressure, a sound stethoscope with a brass chest muscle, a brass folding rule. A notebook with three sharpened lead pencils. Total mass: 3.2 pounds—well below the seven-two-pound limit.
‘Tracking data link is green,’ Imran reported, adjusting his headphones. ‘The audio tone check rod in Lathmere is picking up a sixty-cycle hum from the limestone bedrock. The river crest is forty-eight hours away, but the ground is already soaked. Ada, your vitals are logged. If your heart rate or skin heat spikes, I will trigger the return recall from this console.’
