Eshel’s proposal came over the freight relay a quarter hour after the valve closed.
“Not one outlet,” he said. “Every lamp.”
Mara was at the shared gauge. The lattice’s line, climbing again without the sink. Slowly. But climbing. The third rib on its rack upstairs, thirty minutes from its zero point.
“Explain,” she said.
“We need to slow the lattice’s climb until the third rib seats,” Eshel said. His voice was thin with the bridge’s distance, and tired, but even. “The reserve’s spent. The returns are at their limit. The well’s still drawing in pulses. So we reduce the draw. Not on one lamp. On all of them.”
“Reduce how?”
“Small temporary cuts,” Eshel said. “On every active lamp at once. Hearth. Lorn. Tal. Meridian. Each one steps its output down by a small amount, at the same moment. For the length of a pulse. Then steps back up.” He read the figures. “Each cut’s small. A district’s evening lamps dimmed. A pump started late. Nothing anyone would notice much. But all four together, the combined cut slows the lattice’s rise. Without shutting any outlet.”
Mara thought about it.
