The cloth was on the cutting floor. But the second material bottleneck struck right away: thread. To sew four hundred yards of six-ply reed canvas into flexible high-pressure sleeves capable of withstanding ninety pounds of pressure, Dima needed twenty-four skeins of four-cord, hot-waxed hemp harness twine.
Pella checked the ship chandlers along the boat ramp. Then, she found only eighteen skeins in the entire lower district. And twelve of those skeins had already been reserved by Master Galt for re-rigging the storm lines on the town passenger ferries.
‘If you take all that twine, Pella,’ Master Galt told her gently on the dock, ‘the ferry fleet can’t secure their moorings. Just then, the surge hits the harbor. Three barges will break loose, drift down against the lower bridge piers, and batter the stone arches to pieces.’
Pella looked at the coarse, dark skeins of waxed twine smelling of hot pine tar and beeswax. The temptation of every desperate planner was to seize every resource for the main mission. He ignored the collateral wreckage left in the wake.
‘We don’t take the ferry twine, Master Galt,’ Pella decreed firmly, stepping back from the counter. ‘A rescue that drowns its own rescue fleet is an act of panic, not building. We will take six skeins, and we will find a way to make ordinary linen thread carry the rest of the seams.’
