While the upright star-threads successfully resolved the upward floating thrust of the Primordial Ark, there remained a far more insidious water-flow danger hiding within the deep currents of the Well of Genesis: twisting shear.
At twenty-seven thousand eight hundred deep-water lengths, the physical crust of the planet rotated from west to east at a fixed speed. It dragged the dark rock bedrock of the volcano bowl floor along with it. But seventy leagues above, the sky currents of the upper heavens flowed in the opposite direction. That created a massive, nonstop corkscrew twist across the upright axis of the wellhead.
Between the rotating floor and the counter-rotating heavens lay Segment Twenty-One of the Void-Giant beast—the Vascular Arterial Junction.
This was the exact midpoint of the foundation caisson. There, the monster’s three-thousand-arm-length spine curved over the raised lip of the inner volcano bowl wall. If an unbending upright lattice were subjected to this relentless world-size torque without lateral cross-bracing, the bronze fairleads would be snapped from the plates within three seasons. The entire assembly would tear itself apart in a total load-bearing unraveling.
To prevent this, Qiao Ming had to execute the Cross-Lash of the Seventh Fathom.
In the deep-foundation lore of the Southern Guild, the Cross-Lash was the ultimate test of a master-rigger’s art. It had been invented during the construction of the Great Sea-Locks of the Dragon River, where tidal currents reversing twice a day tore ordinary wooden support posts from their beds. The solution was not to make…
