Ninety deep-water lengths above the drowned stone floor of Entry halls 040 through 060, the high aqueducts hung like delicate marble ribcages against the dark rock ceiling vaults.
For twenty hundred years, these fluted channel arches had carried distilled water drops from the fiery steam chimneys of the outer hull down into the underground water tanks. But when the world collapsed into the deep-sea salt water, heat shocks had snapped seventeen massive arch spandrels. Massive chunks of white porous marble had plunged into the depths, leaving gaping chasms across the channel line. The freshwater flow had ceased, forcing the three million mortals camped on the lower silt terraces to ration salty water scraped from condensing drips or boiled down in soot-blackened copper pots.
Now, under the golden light streaming from the newly awakened statues, work frames woven from sturdy bamboo lashed with hempen ropes hung suspended from the overhead ceiling crampons.
Dozens of mortal stonecutters, masons, and coppersmiths clung to the swinging platforms, their faces smeared with grey fiery volcanic cement mortar and powdered lime. Working alongside them in the misty ceiling air were four semi-clear giant statues—spirits of the Jade Canal Board from the Fourth Dynasty. Their leader, Master Hydraulicist Xun, towered eleven feet tall upon a narrow ledge of banded limestone, his spirit body shimmering in pale celadon soft glow. In his glowing hands he held a bronze plumb-bob and a double-faced side rule, his movements deliberate and unrushed despite the yawning deep pit beneath his feet.
