The dead animal was harder to move than the living one had been.
It had folded into the basin beneath the broken platform, six limbs bent around separate pieces of stone. One pad still gripped a fallen brace. Its body blocked the old dirty-water outlet, and the water collecting around it had begun to carry an unmistakable smell.
Hesh stood above the basin with a rope coil over his shoulder.
“We cut it here.”
Sera looked at the stagnant pocket, then at the only sound descent.
“No.”
“It won’t come out whole.”
“Then you bring it out in sections without putting a worker in that water.”
