Gu had spread the depot drawing across the station records table when Yan came in. It overlapped the map of the barrier and covered one of Han’s marked repair routes.
“Not that table,” Han said. “Use the side board. I still need the road map.”
Gu gathered the papers. “Sorry.”
Sella cleared a space for him on the board. She set down her own maintenance log, open to the page where the ceramic collar had been measured. Gu’s original notes were older and written in a fine, tight hand. He kept his fingers on the corner, as if the paper might move without them.
The drawing showed a modular channel. Instead of routing all the furnace load through one main line, the design split it among smaller stations. Gu had developed the calculations before leaving the Registry, but the system had never been field tested.
“This is my work,” he said. “I knew the equations. I never saw this version built.”
Han pointed to the provincial seal on the depot copy. “The parts were ordered for this design?”
“The collar size matches.” Gu turned the drawing toward Sella. “I didn’t know the parts had been delivered.”
