The drilling started before they reached the old rooms.
It came through the maintenance floor as a rapid, uneven beat. Iven felt it first in his boots, then heard the rasp of a cutting head against something hard. A worker at the junction was turning a warning board toward the passage, though the chalk on it was too faded to read.
“Who’s down there?” Tavin asked.
The worker wiped his hands on his trousers. “Survey crew. They were sent to check the obstruction.”
“What obstruction?” Elian said.
The worker looked at him. “The one in the support wall.”
Elian had asked his office about the pasted map the previous afternoon. He had not given them the route, but he had named the survey section. Apparently that had been enough for someone to find it.
Sera stepped past the warning board. “They can’t drill until we know what the wall is.”
“I’m not in charge of them.”
“Who is?”
“A man named Hobb. He has an order.”
Tavin pushed the board aside. “Then Hobb can show us.”
The corridor narrowed near the old door. Three lamps hung from the pipe supports, and a temporary drill had been bolted to the floor. Its cutting head pressed into the pale wall a few paces from the doorframe. Two men worked the drive wheel while a third watched the drill bit. The man watching wore a leather apron and held a folded sheet of paper.
A fourth worker lay on the floor behind the machine. One leg was pinned beneath a fallen length of pipe.
Kesh stopped so suddenly that Iven nearly walked into her. Beyond the drill, two pale armored creatures moved against the wall. One struck the cutting head with a forelimb. The other pressed its body against the fresh hole, scraping at the bit each time it emerged.
The men at the wheel kept turning.
“Stop!” Sera shouted.
Hobb raised his hand, but the noise swallowed his voice. Iven caught the edge of the drive wheel. It dragged at his palms before slowing. Tavin joined him, and together they brought it to a halt.
For a moment the only sound was the hiss of water in the drain.
One creature turned toward them. The other continued to strike the stationary bit. Its armored limb hit the metal with a dull, regular knock.
“You can’t stop that with people inside,” Hobb said.
“There’s a man on the floor,” Neri replied.
“He fell when the pipe came down.”
“Then perhaps you should help him.”
Hobb glanced at the creatures. His reluctance was plain. Iven understood it; the nearer animal had turned its head toward the voices and lowered its body as if preparing to spring.
Kesh stepped between them and the injured worker. “How did the pipe fall?”
“The drill shook the bracket loose,” one of the men said.
“And when did they arrive?”
“After we started.”
“How long after?”
“I wasn’t counting.”
“Did either strike you before the pipe fell?”
“No. They went for the bit.”
The creature at the bit struck it again. The drill head shifted slightly but remained lodged in the wall. Sera moved toward the injured worker. Iven seated a plate brace and followed her.
“Can you hear me?” Sera asked the man.
He opened his eyes. “My leg.”
“I can see it. What’s your name?”
“Derrit.”
“Derrit, I’m going to check the weight on your leg before we move it.”
The pipe lay across his calf, held at one end by a broken bracket. Iven tested the loose end. It was heavier than it looked, full of water and mineral sediment. He could lift it briefly, but lifting it the wrong way would shift the bracket and twist the man’s leg.
“Neri, can you block the upper end?”
She fetched a wedge from the drill crew’s tool box. Hobb began to object, then stopped when Jora Sen appeared at the end of the corridor with two guards. Someone had apparently sent for her before Iven’s group arrived.
Jora took in the scene. “Why is the drill running?”
“It isn’t,” Hobb said.
“It was when I came down the stairs.”
“We have an order to inspect the wall.”
“Show me after the injured man is out.”
Neri set the wedge beneath the bracket. Iven seated the winch pattern and attached a physical line to the pipe. The anchor was a floor ring used for the drill’s transport. He drew the pipe upward slowly while Sera held Derrit’s leg steady. Tavin pulled the man clear and laid him on a folded coat.
The pipe remained suspended on the line. Iven fixed the rope to the ring, then released the imprint. His forearm tingled from the sustained pull, but the pipe did not move.
Sera examined the leg. “Broken, I think. Possibly more than one place.”
Derrit swallowed. “Will I walk?”
“I can’t promise until I’ve examined it properly. I can promise we’ll get you out without making it worse if you help me keep it still.”
He nodded, though his face had gone gray.
The creature at the drill bit stopped striking. It pressed its head against the fresh hole. The second remained near Iven, shifting from one forelimb to the other. Kesh watched both without raising her spear.
“Can we take him past it?” Tavin asked.
“Maybe,” Kesh said. “Let me make room.”
She tapped her spear against the floor farther down the corridor. The nearer creature turned toward the sound but did not move. She tapped again, then dragged the point along the stone. The creature followed the scrape for two steps, enough to clear a path.
Tavin and one of the drill workers lifted Derrit on a canvas sheet. Sera walked beside them, supporting his leg. Iven held the plate brace between the group and the creature until they passed. It struck the brace once, a quick testing blow, then turned away toward the drill.
Jora read Hobb’s order while they moved the injured man to the stairs. “This authorizes a survey of the support wall. It doesn’t say to drill into an occupied room.”
“The room isn’t on the map.”
“It is now. Elian Veyr reported it.”
Hobb looked at Elian. “Your office sent the order.”
Elian’s face tightened. “I asked why the map was altered.”
“Then you got an answer.”
“No. You got a drill.”
Jora folded the paper and returned it. “The work stops until the survey office and the transport board agree on a safe method.”
Hobb protested. Jora listened without changing her expression. When he finished, she pointed toward Derrit being carried up the stairs.
“You can give me a second objection after he’s treated.”
Hobb looked at the drill, then at the two creatures beside it. He did not argue again.
Kesh approached the machine from the side. The creature at the hole remained there, its limb moving across the fresh cut. Pale fluid had begun to gather around the drill bit.
“It’s attending the damage,” she said.
“Or feeding on it,” Iven said.
“Or attacking the metal,” Neri added.
“All of those fit what we saw.” Kesh pointed to the second creature. “But this one left the people once they moved away.”
“It hit my brace.”
“You were between it and the drill.”
“That doesn’t prove it knew the difference.”
“No. But we can test it.”
Sera returned after arranging Derrit’s transport. She had left him with the guards and a stretcher team from the clinic. “What kind of test?”
Kesh pointed down the corridor to a loose pipe bracket. “We can make a sound there without cutting the wall. If they pursue any impact, they may follow it. If they stay here, we learn something else.”
Neri shook her head. “Not while the bit is still in the wall. If it shifts, we won’t know what they’re responding to.”
“Then we remove the bit first.”
Hobb stared at them. “You want to go near those things?”
“I want them away from a hole your crew made,” Sera said.
The nearest creature raised its head when she approached. Iven held the brace ready but did not project it. Kesh made a scraping sound farther along the corridor. This time the creature followed, slowly, while watching the others. Neri and Iven worked at the drill head from the opposite side. They loosened the retaining collar and drew the bit out by hand.
Pale fluid welled from the hole. Sera pressed a clean pad against it and bound the pad with strips tied around the metal ring. The creature at the hole struck once at the cloth, then settled with its body close to the wall.
Kesh made the test sound at the loose bracket. The second creature turned toward it, moved halfway down the corridor, and stopped. When she struck the bracket again, it advanced one more step. It did not charge. The first creature remained beside the pad.
“That’s not a clean result,” Elian said.
“No,” Kesh replied. “It’s a useful one.”
They withdrew to the junction. Jora stationed a guard by the warning board and sent another to bring the transport board’s engineer. Hobb’s crew packed its tools, leaving the drill body bolted to the floor until it could be moved safely.
Iven followed Sera to the clinic after helping secure the pipe. Derrit lay on a narrow bed with a splint around his leg. His wife had arrived and was sitting beside him, holding his hand without speaking. The boy with the water jug from the upper ward came past the door carrying a stack of folded cloths.
“Is the heater working?” Iven asked him.
The boy nodded. “My grandmother says it’s too warm now.”
“That’s how you know it’s repaired.”
The boy considered this. “She says you’re making a face again.”
Iven looked through the doorway at Derrit. “She’s probably right.”
In the adjoining room, Sera set the drill pad in a shallow dish. Pale residue marked the cloth. She cut off a corner and placed it beside the sample from the doorframe. The two looked similar, but one had come from a fresh drilled hole and the other from a scrape made the previous day.
“What will you do with them?” Iven asked.
“Test how they change in air. Compare them with known fluids. Ask someone better equipped than I am to examine them.”
“Who?”
“There’s a laboratory at the College that might accept an anonymous sample.”
“You trust them?”
“I trust one technician. I don’t trust the institution to leave her alone if she asks the wrong question.”
Iven looked at the two pieces of cloth. “Then we find another way to check.”
Sera gave him a tired smile. “That is why I asked you to help.”
Elian arrived before evening with a copy of the order. He placed it beside the dish, keeping the paper well clear of the samples.
“The authorization came from a survey supervisor,” he said. “But the request for immediate drilling came from the governor’s maintenance office.”
“Your father?” Iven asked.
“I don’t know who signed it. The copy has a stamp, not a name.”
Neri, who had come to check on Derrit, studied the stamp. “Can you find the original?”
“I can try.”
“Try carefully,” Sera said.
Elian looked toward the clinic bed. “Derrit was hurt because I asked a question. I intend to find out who answered it.”
Iven understood the distinction. Elian had not ordered the drill. Someone had chosen to use one. Finding that person mattered, but it would not mend Derrit’s leg.
Neri asked whether Derrit’s wages would continue while he healed. Elian did not know. He wrote the question on the back of his survey copy, beneath the stamp, and promised to ask the transport board. Sera gave him the name of the ward where Derrit’s wife could find updates. It was a small exchange, but it assigned someone to do each necessary thing rather than leaving the question to drift away with the drill crew.
Sera covered the samples. Outside, the slow movement of Mercy carried a faint tremor through the clinic wall. Iven could not tell whether it had always been there or whether he had only recently learned to notice it.