Tal’s return opened at half the planned flow.
Eshel called it on the Cinder link at the first hour of the afternoon. “Tal’s open,” he said. “Three sections lined. Fourth closed. The governor’s taking the relief pulse from the bridge and moving it into Tal’s spiral. Half the network plan’s figure for Tal. As voted.”
Mara was at the well’s screen.
She watched the lattice. The bow on the near side, the curved struts. And Eshel’s needle beside it, on the console, on the bow mark.
The needle moved.
Down. A hair. Then another. Tal’s return was letting pressure out of the lattice’s far side, through Tal’s heart, into the cold. Mara could see it: the needle easing off the grease-pencil mark, the bow on the screen flattening by a fraction.
Then it stopped.
Mara watched it stop. She waited for it to go on falling. A breath. Two. The needle sat where it was. The bow on the screen sat where it was, flatter by a hair than an hour ago, and no flatter.
