Pellan received the answer about the coupling three days later. The fee had been reduced, but not removed. The board held the inspection crew responsible for half the replacement screw because the coupling had been returned with a damaged retaining groove.
“We didn’t damage the groove,” he said.
“Can you prove it?” the clerk asked.
“No. Can the contractor prove we did?”
The clerk looked down at the decision. She had not made it. Pellan knew that and moderated his voice before he spoke again.
“Who decides the appeal?”
“The maintenance supervisor.”
“Where is the supervisor?”
“At the rear lift.”
Iven nearly laughed. Every official on Mercy seemed to be somewhere other than the place where people needed them. Pellan caught his expression and shook his head.
“Don’t say it.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“You were.”
They went to the rear lift. The supervisor was examining a damaged loading rail with two workers. He listened to Pellan, examined the receipt and the contractor’s incomplete note, and asked whether the crew had checked the coupling before moving the frame.
“We didn’t see it,” Pellan said.
“Then you don’t know whether it was attached.”
“Neither does the contractor.”
The supervisor rubbed the edge of the note with his thumb. “The fee is for a screw, not the entire coupling.”
“It’s still being taken from our pay.”
“I understand that.”
“Do you?” Pellan asked. “Because the crew went in after the contractor left the frame behind. We brought back the frame and the coupling. We also repaired a door and vent cover. If we hadn’t, you’d be paying another crew.”
The supervisor looked at Iven. “Did you do the repairs?”
“Yes.”
“Were they authorized?”
“The follow-up repairs were. The first door repair was necessary to get through without leaving the creatures behind us.”
“That’s not a standard reason.”
“It worked.”
The supervisor read the report. He asked Iven to explain how the temporary bolt had been fitted, then checked the later entry showing it had been replaced with a proper pin. He did not appear interested in the creatures except as a reason the crew had moved quickly.
At last he crossed out the fee. “The board will supply the screw. You will all be paid for the follow-up work.”
Pellan exhaled. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. The pay won’t be ready until the next collection.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Then I’ll save it until tomorrow.”
Outside the lift, Iven asked Pellan why the screw mattered so much. Pellan looked at him in surprise.
“It doesn’t matter by itself. Oret’s pay was docked last month for a tool the foreman lost. Fen has a child who needs medicine. If the board takes a little from each job, the people doing the work pay for mistakes they can’t see.”
Iven nodded. He knew what a small amount could mean to a family. He had been sending those amounts through Vale’s fund for months, never enough to make the old loss disappear, but enough to cover a rent payment or a winter coat when someone needed it.
They met Kesh at the clinic that evening. She had gathered reports from workers in three different passages. In two places, drilling near warm moving surfaces had preceded encounters with pale creatures. In a third, a drill had run for a full shift without any appearance.
“What was different?” Iven asked.
“Stone behind the support,” Kesh said. “At least according to the crew. They did not see fluid or movement.”
“That’s consistent,” Sera said, “but it isn’t enough to prove the cause.”
“I know.” Kesh laid the reports side by side. “The pattern is worth testing. It is not a verdict.”
Elian arrived with a copy of an older map. The retired symbol appeared beside several lines running beneath the rear saddle. Some were labeled as circulation channels. Others had no label at all.
“The survey office says the marks were used where movement had to be measured,” he said. “Marel found an old instruction to stop work if the movement changed beyond a specified range.”
“What range?” Iven asked.
“The instruction refers to a separate table. We haven’t found it.”
“Convenient,” Pellan said.
“Or misplaced,” Elian replied. “I don’t know which.”
Sera studied the map. “The marks are close to the areas where Kesh’s reports place the encounters.”
“Some of them,” Kesh said. “There are also marks with no reports.”
“Then we shouldn’t circle only the ones that fit.”
She smiled. “I know.”
Kesh took out a second sheet and drew three columns: place, work, and what witnesses saw. Beneath the third she left space for more than one account.
“Will the board accept this?” Pellan asked.
“It doesn’t need to accept it for me to keep it.”
“That wasn’t what I meant.”
“I know. I’ll offer them a copy. If they decline, the workers can still use one.”
Elian pointed to the entry where no creature had appeared. “Add the time between the drilling and the end of the shift. If one came later, the crew might have left before it arrived.”
“Good.” Kesh added the interval. “And the time when the next crew entered.”
Sera asked her to add whether anyone had used a lamp, sounded an alarm, or thrown a tool. The younger worker’s wrench might matter to the sequence. Kesh wrote those questions at the bottom rather than pretending the old reports already answered them.
Iven studied the sheet. “If another crew sees one, do they stop work?”
“They stop long enough to get people clear and tell the person in charge,” Kesh said. “I won’t instruct a worker to stand still and observe a charging animal for my benefit.”
Pellan approved of that. He had seen what a few seconds cost in a narrow passage.
They agreed on a practical next step. Pellan would ask the board to include movement measurements in future inspection reports. Elian would keep looking for the missing table. Sera would compare the samples from the brace with material already collected from known circulation channels. Kesh would continue asking workers what they saw before and after an encounter.
No one proposed opening another drill hole to see what happened. The existing damage offered enough questions.
When the discussion ended, Sera handed Iven a small folded cloth containing the cleaned fragments he had brought from the passage. “The pale material on the drill bit is mineral. The darker residue contains organic fibers.”
“From the wall?”
“Possibly. It could also have come from the brace or another surface the bit touched.”
“You’ve spent too much time with Kesh.”
“I knew how to be uncertain before I met her.”
The next day Pellan collected the crew’s pay. He brought Iven’s share to the loading platform in a small paper packet, with the board’s mark on the fold.
“They paid for the door?” Iven asked.
“And the vent. Not the first visit, but the follow-up.”
Iven counted the coins. There was enough to pay the remaining yard debt, put something aside for Vale, and buy a new length of rope. He had left a section in the lower passage as a route marker. He preferred to replace it before he needed it.
Pellan sat beside him on the edge of the platform. Below them, workers rolled a cart of fittings toward the lift. One wheel squeaked at every turn.
“I thought you were going to leave the frame,” Pellan said.
“I considered it.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because we had a way to get it through. And because I thought the board would make you pay for it if we didn’t.”
“They might have.”
“You don’t have to thank me again.”
“I’m not. I’m telling you I’d have left it.”
Iven looked at him. “Kesh needed help.”
“Yes. If you’d asked me to choose, I’d have left the frame and helped her.”
“That would have been the right choice.”
Pellan nodded. “I’m glad we didn’t have to make it.”
They sat for a while without speaking. The squeaking cart reached the lift. Its operator stopped it, lifted one wheel, and poured a little oil onto the axle. The squeak became quieter. Pellan watched with an expression that suggested he was measuring the work against the time it took.
“Could have done that before he started,” he said.
“Maybe he didn’t hear it until now.”
“You could hear it from the next saddle.”
“Then perhaps he was trying to make sure people moved out of the way.”
Pellan laughed. It changed his face enough that Iven understood why Maret had described him as less stern than he looked.
Iven bought a new rope from a supplier near the market. He checked the twist, pulled at the ends, and refused the first coil because one section had been spliced poorly. The supplier offered a discount. Iven asked for a better coil instead. The second was sound, and he paid the full price.
At Neri’s yard, he found Dessa and Jem preparing timber for a repair to the relief kitchen stairs. He paid Dessa for the insulating sleeve with the promised morning’s labor and then helped carry two lengths of timber to the handcart. Neri was measuring the stairwell when they arrived.
“The lower step is pulling away from the wall,” she said. “We can replace the support without taking the whole stair out.”
Asa stood at the kitchen door with a tray of cups. “If you take the whole stair out, you’ll have to bring the tea down by rope.”
“That’s a service we can provide,” Iven said.
“You’ll charge for it.”
“Only after the first cup.”
They worked until the lower support was secure. Jem cut the replacement timber; Dessa held it in place while Neri checked the angle. Iven used a small brace to steady one end for the few seconds needed to seat a bolt. The physical support took over as soon as the bolt was tight.
Asa served tea. She had put a little spice in it, enough to warm the mouth without hiding the taste of the leaves. Iven sat on the repaired step and watched Brin carry bowls into the kitchen.
“Vale is organizing a night market tomorrow,” Asa said. “People have been bringing food and spare clothes. The cooks will trade what they can, and the rest goes to the households on the list.”
“Do you need help?” Neri asked.
“I need people who can carry tables without turning it into a competition.”
Dessa looked at Iven. “That rules him out.”
“I don’t compete with tables,” he said. “I usually lose.”
Asa handed Neri a folded list. “Your cooperative can have a place near the stair. If anyone needs a small repair, they can ask. I’m not promising you’ll do it for free.”
“Good,” Neri said. “We have to pay for timber.”
“And I have to pay for the tea you’re drinking.”
The conversation moved to what each stall might bring: a tailor with patched coats, a baker willing to sell yesterday’s bread cheaply, a woman who made soap and had agreed to trade it for cooking oil. None of it was enough to solve the ward’s problems. Together, it might make the next week easier for people who had run out of choices.
Iven left a portion of his pay with Vale after the others had gone to carry the tools back. He did not put his name on the packet. Vale looked at the coins, then at him, and placed them in the fund box without comment.
“Tomorrow will be busy,” she said.
“I can carry tables.”
“I heard. I also heard you lose to them.”
“Only the large ones.”
She closed the box. “Then we’ll find you a small one.”
On the walk home, Mercy took a longer step than usual. The buildings shifted against their braces, and a row of hanging lamps swung in the same direction. Iven paused until the movement settled. People around him did the same without being told.
He thought of the line on Elian’s old map, the instruction to stop work if movement changed, and the creature that had struck the brace. The step was ordinary enough that no one cried out. It still made the bolts in the nearest railing turn a fraction against their worn washers.
He marked the railing in chalk and told the stall owner beside it that someone should check the fastenings. Then he went home with a new rope, a few coins, and a question that had not yet found its answer.