Pev walked the ravine bed twice before she let anyone touch the removal lines.
The temporary posts stood clear of the old rib’s fall path. The hand capstan’s anchor bed was dry. Its second line ran to a separate sound ring, not to the same timber that carried the first. Above, the old broken masonry had been divided into the sections the crew could lower without pulling the sound first arch after it.
She found one loose wedge at the last guide and drove it home herself.
Then she cleared the bed.
By the morning of day fifteen hundred and nineteen, the repaired far lower course had reached its inspected limit for the next work. Its temporary support remained. Nothing would ask the fresh bearing to carry a new arch while the broken old one still hung beside it.
Neri stood at the upper sighting station with Oda Rusk, watching the marked joints.
Iven waited beside the capstan guide. For the removal shift he had seated plate brace, lattice shell, winch draw, counterweight, hammer ram, and track grip. The rest of his library remained quiet. His hip bruise had faded enough that climbing the yard steps no longer reminded him of the bolt. The graft had suffered no injury, and his reserve had returned through ordinary recovery and the work’s lighter intervals.
