Jem cut the new roller too long on purpose.
“If I make it short,” he told Iven, “we’re having a different conversation.”
He held the steel rod in a little vise bolted to the edge of the work platform. The saw moved back and forth in short, even strokes. Metal dust gathered beneath it. Iven stood nearby with the old roller and his gauge, checking the diameter as Jem worked.
The clinic messenger returned with two stretcher bearers and an empty handcart. Enna had moved most of her patients into the smaller room, but one needed the heater soon. The messenger did not say what would happen if it failed to arrive. He looked at the cage and waited for someone to tell him otherwise.
“Can you carry the coil up the stairs?” he asked.
“Not around the turn,” Neri said. “The cage is still the fastest route.”
Jem’s saw broke through. The end of the rod fell into Iven’s hand, hot from friction. He dropped it onto a cloth, shook his fingers, and tried not to look at Dessa.
“You were testing the temperature,” she said.
“Exactly.”
“And?”
“Too warm.”
Jem filed the new piece to length while Iven cleaned the bearing race. The inner surface had a shallow groove where the cracked roller had dragged. He could leave it, but the groove would catch the new rollers and wear them unevenly. He cut a thin strip of sound metal, curved it around the damaged part of the race, and filed the edge until his nail passed over the join without catching.
“Will it hold under load?” Neri asked.
“We’ll test it without the coil first.”
“That means unloading the cage.”
“It means supporting the coil while we move the cage a short distance.”
She looked at the temporary supports, then at the ceiling. “We can hang it from the crossbeam.”
Dessa checked the beam. It had been installed to carry a maintenance hoist, not a heater coil, but the marks on its plate gave a safe load well above the coil’s weight. She rigged two slings and had Tavin inspect each knot. Together they lifted the coil a handspan off the cage floor.
The cage moved freely beneath it. Iven replaced the cracked roller with Jem’s new one, fitted the remaining five, and packed the housing with clean grease. When he turned the wheel by hand, it rotated but stopped too quickly.
He took the housing apart again.
“What now?” the messenger asked.
“The replacement is a fraction too wide.”
“Can you leave it?”
“Not if you want the lift to keep working after today.”
The messenger looked as if he wanted to argue, then stepped back. He had seen the old pin fold under the cage’s load. Iven filed the roller once more, checking it against the others by touch and gauge. This time, when he assembled the bearing, the wheel turned smoothly. It continued for several revolutions after he let go.
He watched it slow. The small, regular movement settled into the graft along his left forearm: not the wheel itself, but its way of carrying motion without wasting it at every contact. He held the impression long enough to understand its direction, its limits, the way it needed a surface to bear against.
Neri saw his expression. “Another one?”
“I think so.”
“Is it useful?”
“Possibly. I’d like to meet it under less urgent circumstances.”
“Introduce yourselves later. First the lift.”
They replaced the housing cover, tightened the bolts, and lowered the empty cage a short distance. The guide wheel ran between the rails without grinding. Tavin raised it again and repeated the test. Iven checked the temperature of the housing. Warm, but not hot.
“Now with weight,” Neri said.
They lowered the coil into the cage and fastened it to both sides of the deck. Tavin raised the lift slowly. The guide wheel turned. The new bearing made a soft rolling sound, almost lost beneath the creak of the main cable.
At the upper landing, Enna and two workers received the coil. She checked its wrappings for damage, then looked down at Iven.
“You said two hours if it didn’t come cleanly.”
“We’re within that,” he said.
“By three minutes.”
“I like to leave a margin.”
Enna’s face softened just enough to count. “Come up later. There’s tea.”
“Is it good tea?”
“It’s hot.”
“That’s usually enough.”
The cage descended empty. Tavin stopped it at the work platform so Neri could make one final inspection. Jora remained at the end of the lane with an officer, taking statements from the workers who had seen the cut chain. Krail’s men had gone. Iven hoped they had found something less destructive to do with their afternoon, though he did not put money on it.
Brin returned the borrowed roller to Liss and came back with a paper bag. “She gave me a sweet.”
“Did you ask?” Iven said.
“She said it was for not losing the second roller.”
“That seems fair.”
Brin held up the bag. “There are two.”
“Then she’s generous.”
“One is for you.”
Iven took it. The sweet was hard enough to serve as a replacement bearing. He put it in his mouth anyway and immediately regretted attempting to bite it.
Neri was crouched beside the guide assembly when the first shot struck the wall above her head. It was not a firearm; a bolt from a compact spring bow embedded itself in the wooden brace with a blunt crack.
“Down,” Jora shouted.
A second bolt hit the cage frame. It carried a thin cord tied behind the head. Iven followed the cord to a figure on the opposite catwalk. The figure pulled, and the bolt’s barbed head caught in the cage’s upper rail. Another figure appeared beside him with a small winch.
“They’re going to pull it sideways,” Neri said.
The cage stood only a little above the platform, but the guide wheel was still in its channel. A strong sideways pull could bend the bracket, perhaps rip the rail free. Jora’s officers could not reach the catwalk without going around the loading lane, and the attackers had chosen a position above the crowd.
Iven spat the sweet into his hand. “Dessa, keep everyone away from the shaft.”
He seated the bearing pattern in place of the bell. The graft held three channels: plate, piston, and the new smooth movement. He did not know how much the bearing pattern would do away from the source. He knew the physical principle, the surfaces, the need for a path.
A narrow service beam ran from the platform toward the opposite wall. It stopped short of the catwalk by several meters. He could reach the beam, but crossing it at ordinary speed would expose him to the bow.
“I’m going across,” he told Neri.
“There’s a gap at the end.”
“I can see it.”
“What are you doing about it?”
“I was hoping to think of something on the way.”
She handed him a length of rope. “Think faster.”
He tied one end around his waist and gave the other to Dessa. Then he stepped onto the beam. The bowman turned toward him. Iven sent a plate brace across his left side; the bolt struck it and skipped into the shaft.
He pushed off. The bearing pattern reduced the friction between his boots and the metal, allowing him to slide along the beam with a light guiding pressure rather than a series of uncertain steps. It did not pull him forward. His own push supplied the motion, and he had to keep his balance as the narrow beam shifted beneath him.
The slide carried him farther and faster than a run could have. At the end he planted one boot, released the glide, and jumped. His hands caught the catwalk rail. The rope went taut behind him as Dessa took his weight for a moment. He swung a leg over and landed on the planks.
The bowman backed away. The man at the winch drew a short knife and cut the cord. The cage’s rail snapped back toward its original position. Below, Neri checked the guide before it could settle against the wheel.
“You can leave,” Iven told the men.
The bowman raised his weapon again. Iven crossed the space between them with two ordinary steps, caught the bow at its center, and turned it aside. The bolt fired into the roof. The man with the knife rushed him from the right.
Iven used the plate brace to catch the man’s wrist, pushed his arm outward, and sent a piston strike into the wooden post beside him. The impact shook the catwalk. The knife fell. Before the man could recover, Iven hooked his boot behind the man’s ankle and put him on the planks.
The bowman tried to pull free. Iven took the weapon from him and tossed it onto the roof where neither man could reach it.
“I’m being very clear,” he said. “You can leave.”
The bowman looked at his companion, then toward the lane where Jora’s officers were arriving. He chose the stairs. The other man followed, holding his wrist. Neither returned for the bow.
Iven leaned against the rail and let the graft’s pressure subside. The movement had cost him charge, but his legs still belonged to him and the new pattern remained. He had not expected the glide to carry him quite so cleanly. He was pleased enough to be annoyed with himself for being pleased while the cage still needed inspection.
Neri called up, “Was that the bearing?”
“Yes.”
“Did you plan the jump?”
“I planned the first part.”
“Which part?”
“The part where I stayed on the beam.”
She shook her head, but she was smiling.
Jora’s officers reached the catwalk and took the abandoned winch. One found the cut end of the cord and showed it to Jora below. She ordered the area cleared while the transport board recorded the damage. Iven crossed back by the stairs rather than testing the beam again. He had already established that the bearing pattern worked; he did not need to establish how many times Dessa could save him in an afternoon.
At the platform, Neri checked the cage’s guide wheel. It had moved but not bent. The bearing turned freely. They ran one last empty test under Jora’s supervision and marked the assembly with the date and the names of everyone who had inspected it.
The clinic messenger returned with a cup of tea. “Enna said you could have this if you didn’t drop anything else.”
Iven took the cup. “Is the heater working?”
“Not yet. They’re fitting the coil.”
“Then thank her when it does.”
The messenger hesitated. “She said to thank you now.”
The tea was hot and weak. Iven drank it beside the lift while the workers cleared the fittings. Above, the city shifted with Mercy’s slow gait. The repaired wheel rolled a fraction in its guide and stopped without a sound.
Neri stood beside him. “You’ll want to practice that glide before you do it over another shaft.”
“I thought I did practice it.”
“You performed it once. That’s a different thing.”
He considered the service beam, the gap, and the moment his hands had caught the catwalk rail. “You’re right.”
“I know.”
“Does that happen often?”
“Only when someone asks me a question.”
A messenger from Sera’s clinic arrived before he could answer. She wanted Iven and Neri at the lower workshop that evening. Kesh Varo had found a passage behind an old maintenance wall, and the wall had something on the other side that looked very much like a door.
He folded Liss’s note and put it beside his gauge. Brin had earned his sweet, and Jem had earned payment for the roller. Iven made himself remember both before the next job consumed the rest of the evening.
Iven finished the tea. “A door,” he said. “That’s promising.”
Neri looked at the brace where the bolt still protruded. “Ask it whether it latches before you go in.”