The back came up through the floor at an angle.
Mineral plates rolled against one another, dark with water underneath, pale where old deposits had dried along their edges. A body almost six meters long dragged itself out of the hauling trench. Jointed limbs found the sound stone beside the loose plates. Smaller clusters moved along cracks behind it, their narrow folds making the voices that filled the bay.
“Hold.”
“Careful.”
“Iven.”
The last word came in Neri’s voice again. Neri stood behind the marked wall, holding the service-court plan where the watcher could see it.
Iven looked at her once, then kept his eyes on the body.
He had six functions ready: boiler jacket, lattice shell, turbine burst, compression lance, bell pulse, and pulse damper. The hammer remained in the library, waiting for a protected change. About seven hundred charges had been his comfortable starting reserve that morning. The earlier inspection and rescue had used a small, real part of it.
