Julian Vance didn’t look at the steaming lead walls closing in around the table.
He stared straight down at the heavy naval-brass instrument bolted to the center of the Quality Assurance table beside Lin Mei’s typewriter.
It was a precision 1924 vernier scale equipped with quartz optical prisms, dual feed rollers, and a stamped steel statute plate.
“Mac, Corvo--hold those asbestos aprons up for thirty more seconds!” Julian ordered, shining his 365nm UV Pen across the steel plate.
“Make it twenty, kid!” Mac grunted as another splash of 550 degrees F molten lead hissed off the woven asbestos. “This apron’s starting to smoke like a Sunday brisket!”
Julian read the engraved steel plate of Rule 05-A aloud over the clatter of Mercer’s Linotype machines:
[FOUNDRY STATUTE 05-A -- STEEL MICROMETER SCALE]
[STATUTE 05-A: EVERY PRINTED BUREAU BATCH REQUIRES A MINIMUM OF 51.0% TRUE OPERATIONAL BASELINE SYLLABLES.]
