In the grey hour before departure, Doss checked the straps.
He was a guild technician from Hearth, a broad quiet man Anwen had brought down from the guild shop the night before with a coil of strap webbing over each shoulder and a canvas roll of tools under his arm. Mara had met him at the guild hall and at the scaffold. He had rigged the Tern’s counterweight overnight, a block of iron ballast slung in the cargo bay to balance the gauge rack and the coupling crates, because the Tern’s trim had been set for four people and a stretcher and was now carrying five people and a workshop.
Now he went along the counterweight’s straps one at a time, in the light of the bay’s work lamp, and tested each one with two fingers. He hooked the fingers under the webbing and pulled, gently, just enough to feel whether the strap gave.
The sixth one gave. The buckle slipped a notch.
“Hold it,” Doss said.
Mara was nearest. She took the strap where he pointed, above the buckle, and held it tight against the slip. Doss took a clamp from his roll and fitted it over the buckle and turned its screw down, slowly, watching the webbing. He held the strap with her until the clamp took and the webbing went taut and stayed taut. Then he nodded at her, once, and went on to the seventh.
