The new composite rib slid into the socket and would not lock.
Sen ran it home with the rig. Tavin guided it, on his knees, both hands on its shoulder. The crown iron foot went down the stepped groove and into the socket’s depth, where the old rib had sat, toward the lock: the Founders’ collar around the socket’s floor, with its single great bolt and a locating pin that should drop into a hole in the rib’s foot when the foot was seated true.
The foot reached the lock.
The pin did not drop.
Sen’s hand on the rig’s winch stopped. Everyone in the passage stopped. Even the crew chief’s bucket, at the passage’s mouth, was quiet for once.
Mara heard it not drop. Through the skin, through the graft at its lowest setting, with her palm on the lattice’s outer metal at the passage’s mouth. She heard the foot slide into the lock and stop, and the pin, spring-loaded, press against the foot’s face and not find its hole.
“Pin’s proud,” Tavin said. From the passage. “A hair. It’s sitting on the foot’s face, clear of the hole.”
Sen looked down the socket with the crew chief’s lamp and mirror.
