Councilor Elna Vesk leaned forward across her desk, resting her chin on her clasped hands. The hall was silent, waiting for the decisive legal question.
‘Apprentice Rook,’ Vesk asked, her sharp gray eyes boring into Pella’s face. ‘You have showed the flaw in the Crown’s design. If this Council issues an emergency order today to sever the holding lines and disconnect the Sluice Crown right away, will the city be safe from the coming flood?’
In the gallery, Eren Tal held his breath. A dishonest advocate, hungry for power, would have said yes. Would have promised that shutting down the rival’s machine would instantly solve the crisis.
Pella looked at the Councilman, then looked down at her father’s brass measuring tongs. ‘No, Councilman,’ Pella answered firmly. ‘It wouldn’t be safe. It would be total.’
A gasp of shock swept through the Senate. Sorell smiled faintly, preparing to exploit the admission. But Pella continued without pause.
‘If you sever the bindings instantly with an iron axe,’ Pella explained, ‘the spirit Senn won’t quietly fade. It’s tightly packed under forty-four degrees of boiling bubbling blast. An immediate break will cause the astral matrix to implode. It pulled ten thousand tons of water into the central empty pocket in a single second. That blast wave will drop the High Terrace into the lower channel. The Crown can’t be killed with a gavel, Councilman. It must be powered down in set. Gate Three opened twenty percent, the backup bindings discharged one by one, alternative…
