The first fastener gave after eleven minutes.
Mara heard it through the skin before the crew chief said anything. She had her hand on the lattice’s outer metal at the passage’s mouth, and through the graft she had been listening to the heat blanket’s soft ticking and the lattice’s deep strained tone, and then, under both, a new sound. A small dry crack. Like a knuckle.
The scale, around the fastener’s head, letting go.
“Ready,” she said. Into the handset.
On the handset, the crew chief’s bucket creaked as he stood.
“Wedges,” he said. To his crew.
His voice came through the handset low and unhurried, as if he were asking for a cup of tea.
Mara heard them go in. Thin steel wedges, driven between the panel’s edge and the wall with a small hammer, tap by tap, lightly, each tap a little sound through the metal.
