Tavin put the detonator on the table between the bread and the survey map.
It was a plain brass cylinder with a short length of cord wound around it. Iven knew enough about demolition work to recognize the firing end. He also knew Tavin well enough to understand that the captain had not brought it to the kitchen as a decoration.
Vale looked at the device, then at the bread. “Move it away from the food.”
Tavin did. He placed it beside the map instead.
“Where did you get that?” Neri asked.
“An old freight crew kept a demolition kit for clearing a blocked track. The charge is stored separately. This is the part that makes it go.”
“And what do you intend to make go?” Sera asked.
“The regulator return.”
The kitchen was quieter than it had been in days. The immediate rescue sweep had ended, though people still came in with names to check and questions no one could answer quickly. Vale had given them the back table for a discussion that could not be held in the middle of the clinic. Asa sat with her lists. Elian had brought the latest survey reports. Kesh stood near the window, where she could see the lane. Neri’s crew was replacing a temporary bridge beam outside, and the sound of their hammers came through the wall.
Tavin tapped the map. “One cylinder is still running. Vela says it’s carrying more pressure than it was designed to carry. If the return fails again, we could get another movement without warning.”
“That’s possible,” Sera said.
“Then we stop waiting for it.”
“You want to damage a system whose function we only partly understand.”
“I want to stop a system that’s already damaged and already hurting people.”
Sera put her hand on the ledger copy. “It may also be suppressing the Marcher’s nervous system. If you destroy it, Mercy could wake abruptly.”
“Mercy has already moved.”
“And four hundred people may have died because it moved without the city being ready.”
Tavin’s jaw tightened. “You think I’m not aware of the number?”
“I think you’re treating the next movement as if it will be smaller because you choose when it happens.”
He picked up the detonator, then put it down again. “I’m treating the next failure as something we can prepare for instead of sitting here while a pressure gauge tells us it isn’t supposed to happen.”
Iven watched the two of them. Tavin had spent days moving injured people through a cage whose guide wheel could have failed. He knew what happened when a system waited too long for permission to be repaired. Sera had spent the same days studying the wall’s movement and treating people injured by it. She knew what happened when a body and the structures on it moved without coordination.
Neither was arguing from ignorance. They were choosing different risks.
“What would you do?” Iven asked Sera.
“Reduce suppression in stages. Monitor the tissue and the city’s movement. If Mercy is conscious, give it the opportunity to respond.”
“Where do the people go while it responds?” Tavin asked.
“We reinforce the occupied decks and move people away from the most vulnerable structures.”
“How many?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“Where?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Tavin spread his hands. “That’s a wish, not a route.”
Sera’s face hardened. “And a charge under the return line isn’t a route either.”
Neri leaned over the map. “Both of you are talking about movement. The city was built to flex within a range. We saw what happened when it exceeded that range. I can reinforce particular spans. I cannot brace five kilometers of structures against any movement you might produce.”
Elian pointed to a mark on the survey. “The rear saddle shifted farther than the forward one. If we knew whether the movement began at the regulator or at the Marcher’s body, we could identify the most vulnerable sections.”
“Do we have that evidence?” Iven asked.
“Not enough. Some witnesses saw the horizon change before the deck tilted. Others felt the tilt first.”
Kesh opened her notebook. “The creatures moved toward the damaged passages after the pressure changed. That tells us something about their response. It doesn’t tell us what Mercy intended.”
Asa had been listening without looking at the detonator. “I need to ask a smaller question. If either plan causes another movement tonight, where do the people in the damaged lane sleep?”
Tavin pointed toward the clinic landing. “The bath hall has room for some.”
“It’s already full.”
“The upper store.”
“Half of it is being used for food.”
“We can move the food.”
“To where?”
He opened his mouth, then closed it.
Vale brought another pot to the stove. “There are rooms above the old weaving shop. The owner offered them this morning. They need bedding and someone to check the stairs.”
Neri nodded. “I can send Dessa.”
“That gives us one place,” Asa said. “We need several.”
Iven looked at the map. Elian had marked damaged buildings in red, safe crossings in blue, and uncertain structures with a small question mark. There were too many question marks. The map was more honest than the one that had called the rope-shop rooms empty. It was also not yet a plan.
“Neither of you gets to start tonight,” he said.
Tavin looked at him. “You aren’t in charge of my crew.”
“No. I’m telling you what I’ll do if you take the charge down there. I’ll stand in front of you until you explain where the people above the return line are supposed to go.”
“And if the regulator fails while we’re arguing?”
“Then we deal with that failure. We don’t create another one because we dislike waiting.”
Tavin’s hand rested on the detonator. For a moment Iven thought he might put it back in his coat and leave. Instead, he pushed it across the table toward Vale.
“Keep it away from the stove,” he said.
Vale picked it up with two fingers. “Gladly.”
Sera looked at Iven. “You said neither of us. Are you asking me not to reduce suppression?”
“I’m asking you not to do it until we know how to keep the people above it safe.”
“And Mercy?”
“Mercy is part of the plan. I don’t want the engines left as they are because the people above them are frightened. I also don’t want the people treated as something we can move later.”
Sera held his gaze. “You may not get a plan that protects everyone.”
“I know.”
The words were not a concession that the choice was easy. The last few days had made it impossible to believe that any plan would be free of cost. He wanted the costs named before someone else was made to pay them.
Elian opened a second sheet. “There are older route records in the survey office. Some describe fixed ground where the Marchers pass close enough for transfer. I haven’t checked whether any can support a large population.”
“Then check,” Tavin said.
“I will.”
Neri pointed to the damaged lane. “We also need to know which structures can be reinforced and which have to be emptied now. That’s not waiting for a perfect plan. That’s work we can start.”
Asa added three addresses to her list. “The families from these rooms need somewhere tonight.”
“Dessa can check the weaving shop,” Neri said. “I’ll take the bridge crew to the upper store.”
Kesh turned from the window. “I can guide a team to the surviving neural line. We saw a branch near the regulator gallery that moved after the cylinder shut down.”
Sera’s attention sharpened. “Can we reach it without opening the regulator?”
“I think so. I won’t promise until I’ve walked the route.”
“What would the test tell us?” Iven asked.
“Whether a signal applied to the line produces a repeatable response,” Sera said. “Not whether Mercy understands a word. Not whether it wants to walk in a particular direction. But it could tell us whether the line is active and whether the response changes with the signal.”
Tavin shook his head. “And if your test makes it move?”
“Then we use a small input, a controlled contact, and a stop point. We don’t connect it to the full regulator.”
“Can you guarantee it won’t?”
“No.”
The answer left the room quiet. Sera did not try to improve it.
Iven looked at the list of damaged structures. “We can choose a line that doesn’t carry a major load. We can warn the nearby crews and clear the immediate passage. If the first contact produces movement beyond the stop point, we stop.”
Tavin’s expression remained doubtful. “You’d risk that?”
“I’d risk a small, controlled test if it helps us avoid making a larger choice blind.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“Then we have one less place to pretend we understand.”
Vale returned with the detonator wrapped in a cloth. She put it in a high cupboard and locked the door. “You’ll get this back when you’re ready to use it for a blocked freight track.”
Tavin almost smiled. “I suppose that’s fair.”
“It isn’t meant to be fair. It’s meant to keep it away from my stove.”
The meeting broke into work. Elian left for the survey office. Neri went to the bridge crew. Asa and Vale arranged bedding for the weaving shop. Tavin returned to Cage Seven with a list of local transfers needed before night. Kesh took Sera to inspect the route to the neural line.
Iven went with Neri to the upper store. The building had survived the turn, but one stair post had loosened from its base. Dessa held the post while Jem fitted a steel plate. Iven checked the lower joint and found the bolt sound. He tightened the nut and added a washer, then stood on the stair with Neri while two workers carried bedding up.
“Do you think the test will work?” Neri asked.
“I think it will tell us something.”
“That’s not the same answer.”
“It’s the one I have.”
She tested the post with her shoulder. It held. “Tavin’s angry because he can see what happens if we wait. Sera’s angry because she can see what happens if we don’t. You’re trying to make them both stop long enough to build a stair.”
“It’s a good stair.”
“It is now.”
They carried the last bedding bundle upstairs. The room above the store had broad windows and a floor that sloped slightly toward the rear. Neri checked the slope, then marked the safe area with chalk. The first families would arrive before dark.
A young man at the door asked whether Mercy would turn again.
“We don’t know,” Iven said.
The man looked disappointed. Iven could have offered a comforting answer. He had no right to promise a movement would not happen when the regulator remained unstable and the line beneath the city had not been understood.
“What we do know,” Neri said, “is that this stair is secure and the room has been checked. If we learn something that changes that, we’ll tell you.”
The man nodded. It was not certainty. It was a promise he could use.
At dusk, Kesh returned with a sketch of the neural-line route. The passage was accessible from the regulator gallery, but a fallen support blocked the last section. She had seen a pale cord of tissue running along the wall beyond it, moving faintly beneath a damaged casing.
“Is it a nerve?” Iven asked.
“Sera thinks it may be. She wants a closer look.”
“Any creatures?”
“One passage nearby. No sighting today.”
Neri examined the sketch. “We can brace the fallen support from the near side. We don’t touch the line until the frame is stable.”
Tavin came up the lane as they spoke. He had no detonator now, only a notebook of transfer times.
“I’ve got a cage available for the team tomorrow,” he said. “If you do this, I want to know the stop signal.”
“One whistle,” Kesh said. “Everyone stops. Two, everyone leaves.”
Tavin nodded. “I can work with that.”
He had not abandoned his belief that the regulator might need to be destroyed. Sera had not abandoned her belief that Mercy needed to wake. Iven had not found a refuge or a way to reinforce every building. They had agreed on one limited step and on the conditions under which it would stop.
It was not peace. It was enough to begin.