The first rejected insulator looked beautiful.
Its pale curve lay on Tena Voss’s bench beside a rougher piece that had passed the preliminary load. Light caught a blue sheen in the rejected glaze. Iven turned it in his ordinary hand and found the hairline crack only after she showed him where to look.
“Hot test opened it,” Tena said. “It closed when the piece cooled. Put it in the bank and it will open again when we most need the separation.”
She marked it with a heavy cross.
The kiln workers had not made it carelessly. They had tried the best mixture available, fired it through the proper turn and waited for it to cool. The material had answered with a flaw. The next mixture needed another firing, and nobody could promise that one would pass merely because people had already waited.
Iven put the rejected piece back without suggesting that his radiator could hurry the next cooling. A cold outside around a hot middle would give them another handsome failure.
Beyond the open door, the first of the two newly agreed flour movements was leaving the lower road. It was day 1082. Tera Koss walked beside the lead animal. Eight cooperative guards had assembled for the new dates, and the receiving keeper’s mark named the terrace bench rather than the seed room behind it. Their measured load turned the corner cleanly.
