The reports from Tal came through at the tenth hour, in five lines.
Mara was at the well’s screen with the bow on it. She had not moved in an hour. Sen and her crew were down the pump room hatch and up the cold stair and along the service line, looking for a sink: somewhere the well’s pressure could be put that was not the lattice. Eshel was reading the needle on the bow mark every few minutes. It had not fallen back.
Tal’s third return channel was the second link in the chain after Lorn. If Tal’s return opened, the lattice had a third outlet to breathe through: relief, which was a different thing from a sink. It would not stop the well’s draw, but it would let some of the pressure out the other side.
The report came from Tal’s rigging chief. Mara had never heard his voice. It came through the bridge from Tal’s forge, gruff, clipped, with a mine’s echo behind it.
“Bren,” he said. “Rigging, Tal. Five things.”
“Go,” Mara said.
“One. The third return’s channel body is on site. The mirror iron’s here; the allocation freighter brought it in an hour ago. Two. The heart’s access shaft is partly collapsed. The old shaft. Rock fall, two days ago, after the tremor. Three. We can’t get the channel to the heart through the shaft. Four. The heart’s old and it shakes, you’ll know that from your gauges. Five.” He stopped. “We need a way…
