“Go,” Tavin said.
Anwen triggered the probe.
Through the glass, Mara saw nothing at first. The cell sat on its stand with its yellow light. The test channel sat beside it with its copper fins. The probe pulse was invisible, a weak shiver of energy sent from the generator through the cable into the channel’s mouth and along the mirror iron lining.
She felt it through the sand wall. Through her palm, through the graft. A thin high note, like the note the shard had given at Sable, rising as the pulse entered the lining.
Then the note turned, and turned wrong. Ysol had said the mirror iron would reverse the pulse’s direction without sending it back. Turn it outward, through the shell, into the radiator. What Mara felt through the sand was the pulse hitting the lining and coming back. Straight back. Along the channel, into the cable, into the feed.
“Feed’s jumping,” Eshel said, at the bench.
On the cell’s stand, the power light flared. Yellow to white.
On Eshel’s slate, the feed gauge jumped. Hard. The needle swung to the right and stuck at the end of its scale.
