The Sunward Board’s public log went up on the lower workshop’s wall every hour.
The lower workshop was the lowest chamber, now. Everyone called it that since the ribs began: the workshop at the bottom of the well. A clerk came down the cage every hour with a printed sheet from the Board’s relay and pinned it to the wall beside the plate, over the last hour’s. The log.
Every exceptional load on the network, and the reason for it. A clinic drawing past its share: Meridian upper terrace clinic, archive load, switched off by staff at the pipe crew’s request; medical ward unaffected. A pump started out of turn at Lorn: Lorn cistern pump, started early by technician, frost on intake. A shaft hoist at Tal: Tal hoist, held for step; equipment left below. Each line a load, and a reason, and who.
Mara read the new entries.
She stood at the wall with her right hand on the plate’s edge and read them while the first rib waited on its rig. The rig was Tavin’s timber cradle on rails, at the passage’s mouth, with the first rib lying on it ready to be run along the passage to its socket. The seat was measured. The seating window had not yet been set.
