Tavin’s new manifest began with a list of things that were not to be loaded.
“Unmarked pins,” he read. “Unverified chain. Wet rope. Anything addressed to a man who says he’ll pay when he sees it.”
Brin, standing beside the handcart, added, “Soup without a lid.”
“That goes on the passenger list.”
They were at the lower freight office, where a wide platform connected three lifts to a track leading toward the middle saddle. The office had once been painted blue. Years of hands, carts, and weather had reduced the paint to islands around the door hinges.
Tavin laid the manifest on a table and placed a weight on each corner. His crew was moving support material to the drainage passage for Neri’s contract. The load included treated timber, metal plates, a portable lamp, and two crates of fasteners tested at Liss’s yard.
Elian spread a copied map beside the list. “The old route joins the drainage passage here. There’s a side room that may have held a regulator.”
“May?” Tavin asked.
“The label is damaged. I can read ‘reg’ and part of the next letter.”
“Could be a register.”
“Could be.”
“Could be a place where someone regretted putting it.”
Elian smiled despite himself. “That’s a longer word.”
Iven compared the map with Neri’s support drawing. The planned braces would occupy the corridor near the old room. If the regulator housing sat where the map suggested, the crew could inspect its exterior without moving the support. Opening it would require more space and permission.
“Mark the housing as unverified,” he said.
Elian added a dotted outline. “I intend to.”
“Make the dotted line larger.”
“Why?”
“So nobody mistakes the uncertainty for a small object.”
Neri, checking the timber against her list, looked over. “That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said before breakfast.”
“I’ve had breakfast.”
“That explains it.”
The first cart arrived with two boards missing. Jem counted the load, checked the sender’s receipt, and sent the driver back for the missing pieces. The driver complained that the boards had been left behind because the cart was full.
“Then bring them on the next cart,” Jem said.
“The next cart is for another job.”
“Then tell the other job to wait until you finish this one.”
The driver looked ready to argue until Dessa lifted one end of the remaining timber stack and showed him the space beneath it. Two boards could have fit if the stack had been arranged properly. The driver accepted the point and went back.
Brin watched him leave. “Could I have moved them?”
“You could,” Tavin said. “But then the driver would have been paid for work you did.”
“Would I get paid?”
“If you take his contract.”
Brin considered this. “I might.”
The freight platform grew crowded as the morning shift began. A woman delivering ceramic filters waited beside a cart of empty grain sacks. Two repair workers brought a coil of chain and argued about whether its links should be oiled before inspection. Tavin separated the loads with chalk marks on the floor. Each mark gave the destination, weight, and person responsible.
“Why the name?” Iven asked.
“So we know who to ask when something goes missing.”
“Doesn’t that make people nervous?”
“Only if they were planning to lose it.”
Elian helped check the filter crate against its receipt. He had learned to look inside rather than trusting the number written on the lid. One filter had cracked during transport. The woman delivering it wrote the damage on both copies and asked the receiving worker to sign.
“That’s a lot of signatures for one broken filter,” Brin said.
“It’s cheaper than arguing about it next week,” she replied.
When the missing boards arrived, Neri’s crew loaded the first cart for the drainage passage. Iven walked beside it, testing his ankle on the uneven deck. The swelling had nearly gone. He still felt Dain’s anchor line when he turned too quickly, a reminder to move deliberately rather than a disabling injury.
On the way, the cart met a second freight team at a narrow turn. Neither could pass while the other stood there. Their drivers began arguing over who had entered first, and the people behind them began offering opinions that did not move either cart.
Tavin checked the wheels. “The other cart is lighter. Back it to the landing and we’ll take the inside.”
Its driver objected that his load was fragile.
“Then I’ll put two people on the wheels,” Tavin said. “You steer. I take responsibility if the cart tips.”
The offer changed the argument. The driver asked whether Tavin would sign that responsibility. Tavin took a receipt from his book and did so. Dessa and Iven held the cart while the driver backed it onto the landing. Neri’s load passed with less than a handspan to spare.
When the two teams had room again, the driver returned the receipt. “No damage.”
“Keep it,” Tavin said. “Write that on the back.”
Brin watched him fold the paper. “Does every cart need a promise?”
“Every cart needs someone to decide what happens when it can’t go forward. A promise helps when people don’t know each other.”
Iven thought of the old mosaic, its figures approaching a vast lowered head. He knew too little to say what promise it represented, if any. He did know that Tavin’s small written promise had moved two carts without either crew losing its load.
At the junction, Jora’s guard checked the contract. The transport-board engineer had already entered to inspect the temporary supports. Kesh waited outside with a notebook and a small bell tied to the end of a cord.
“What’s that for?” Iven asked.
“To mark time. If the creature appears, I want to record when the work stops and what it does afterward.”
“Will the bell attract it?”
“That’s one of the things I don’t know. I’ll use it away from the hole first.”
Sera arrived carrying Leda’s signed observation. She showed it to Kesh and the engineer. The engineer read it carefully, then returned it.
“It doesn’t tell me whether the wall carries load,” she said.
“No,” Sera agreed. “That’s your work.”
“And yours?”
“To understand what we’re cutting or pressing against.”
The engineer accepted that. She authorized the crew to install a freestanding support that would bear against the floor and ceiling rather than cutting into the pale wall. Neri directed Jem and Dessa through the drainage passage with the timber. Iven followed carrying the metal plates.
The room was quieter than on their last visit. The pale creature was absent. The drill hole remained covered with a patch of cloth and pale material that had hardened at the edges. Kesh marked its position in her notebook but did not touch it.
Neri set the first vertical support beside the old doorframe. “Jem, hold the base. Iven, the upper plate.”
Iven lifted the plate into position. It was heavy enough to make his shoulder work, but not so heavy that he needed the graft. Neri checked the alignment, then drove the first bolt through the support into a prepared floor bracket. The second support went on the opposite side of the passage. A crossbeam joined them above the damaged frame.
The engineer tested the frame by pressing at each joint. “It needs another diagonal.”
Jem looked at Neri. “I said that.”
“You did,” she replied. “And we brought one.”
He tried not to look pleased while fitting it. He failed.
Elian measured the distance from the frame to the side room indicated on his map. The wall there contained a recessed metal housing, mostly covered by a removable panel. Neri inspected the panel before the engineer permitted it to be opened.
“Four screws,” she said. “No load on the cover.”
Iven loosened them. Behind the panel sat a compact regulator body with two connected chambers and a narrow valve. It resembled Sera’s old drawing, though the casing and pipe connections were larger.
Sera leaned close without touching it. “The valve housing is the same design.”
“Can you tell what it controls?” Elian asked.
“Not from this side.”
The lower pipe led into the pale wall. The upper pipe disappeared behind a metal screen. A small gauge showed pressure, but its face was fogged. Iven wiped the glass with his sleeve. The needle moved in slow pulses.
“Can we trace the upper pipe?” he asked.
The engineer shook her head. “Not today. The screen is attached to the support bracket. Removing it changes the load.”
“Can we record the pressure?”
“Yes.”
Elian wrote the gauge reading and the time. Sera counted the intervals between pulses. Kesh stood at the junction with her bell, watching the drain. No creature appeared while the crew worked.
After the frame was complete, the engineer inspected every joint. She signed the work sheet and authorized the passage for limited access. Neri’s crew would be paid after a second inspection the following week.
As they packed their tools, Iven heard a faint scrape behind the old door. Kesh raised her hand. Everyone stopped. The sound continued, then moved toward the patched hole.
“Work has been quiet for three minutes,” she said, checking the clock in her notebook.
A pale head appeared through the gap. The creature approached the patch, touched it, and remained there. It did not come toward the people standing by the support frame. Kesh made no sound with the bell.
Sera whispered, “It came after the work stopped.”
“Or after we stopped moving near the hole,” Kesh replied.
Elian recorded both possibilities. The creature pressed its forelimb against the patch, then withdrew. A piece of pale material remained on the cloth.
Iven found himself holding his breath. He released it slowly. The animal was close enough for him to see scratches across its plates. One forelimb ended in a blunt edge rather than a claw. It could have struck the support or the people behind it. Instead it continued attending the damaged place.
“Can it see us?” Brin whispered.
“Probably,” Kesh said. “Don’t assume it sees the way we do.”
The creature turned its head. Brin froze. After a moment it moved back through the gap and disappeared.
Nobody spoke until the scraping faded.
“That’s another observation,” Sera said.
“Not a proof,” Iven replied.
She looked at him. “You’ve been listening.”
“I’m trying not to disappoint Leda.”
They closed the panel over the regulator and returned to the freight platform. Tavin paid the cart driver, noting the late boards on the receipt. The driver objected to the note until Tavin showed him that the full payment remained intact.
“Then why write it?”
“So the next person knows what happened.”
The driver signed. Brin took the completed receipt to Calis Dorn at the transport office while Neri and Jem stored the unused timber.
Elian rolled up his map. “The route continues toward the rear yard. There’s a connection to an old freight station.”
“Is that station in use?” Tavin asked.
“Part of it. The upper deck is a repair yard now.”
“Neri’s yard?”
“Not hers. The open yard beyond it.”
Neri frowned. “Krail has a contract there.”
Tavin looked toward the rear saddle. “For what?”
“Freight rigging. He wants to replace the public guide with his own equipment.”
Iven remembered the pin, the cut chain, and the bow bolts. Krail had not abandoned the argument just because witnesses had gathered.
“Does your cooperative have a claim on the work?”
“We filed one. The guide serves three crews, and his contract would give him control of the only access.”
“Has the board decided?”
“Not yet.”
Elian checked the map again. “The old route passes beneath that yard. If they replace the guide, they may cover the access.”
“Then we’ll tell the board before they approve anything,” Neri said.
Tavin folded his manifest. “Tomorrow I’m moving the remaining braces through the yard. If Krail’s people are there, they’ll see the contract.”
“They’ll see it whether they like it or not,” Neri said.
Iven looked at the crowded platform, the carefully marked loads, and the workers who had kept the morning moving despite the missing boards. Freight was a chain of small decisions. A man who controlled the only guide could decide which of those decisions belonged to someone else.
“Tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll come.”