Doss tightened the clamp on the heater coil against the inner face of the shell.
The coil was a flat spiral of resistance wire on a ceramic backing, the size of a dinner plate, one of three Eshel had listed on the tool sheet as item nineteen: heaters, contact, for thermal testing. Doss had set it against the plating at the spot Anwen had chosen, a handspan above the seam where the flake had come from. He held it there with one broad palm and turned the clamp’s screw with the other, slowly, until the ceramic sat flush against the frosted metal.
He took his hand away.
The coil ticked. A small dry sound, metal on ceramic, as the current Doss had run to it from the station’s stored power began to warm the wire.
It ticked again.
“Off,” Ysol said. “For now. Please. Before you go further, listen.”
Doss looked at Mara. Mara nodded. He reached to the switch on the cable and turned it off. The coil ticked once more, cooling, and was silent. Frost had already begun to creep back over the ceramic’s rim where the warmth had touched it.
Ysol stood beside the shell lamp, faint in its glare.
