Iven’s new return worked beautifully on clean water.
Talvek watched it for three complete cycles before saying anything. His gloves did not match. One had a broad leather patch across the palm; the other had been mended at two fingertips with pale cord. He held the watch in the patched hand and kept the other against the dry board, ready to write down whatever the machine actually did.
The pump stood on a covered test bed beside the lower sanitation store. Rain drummed on the roof. Beyond the open side, the temporary transfer kept the waste collection below the walking paths while a separate crew extended the clean roof-water diversion.
The district still smelled wrong in the wet.
It no longer looked as if the next hour would put the water through another door.
Iven had built the added return linkage with the workhouse fitter through yesterday’s paid turn, using the ordinary pump body’s accepted mounting points. A small physical flywheel caught the easier part of the movement and returned it at the difficult point. The altered timing smoothed the drive instead of asking it to begin each stroke against the same hard demand.
It was clever.
He knew it was clever.
