Sen gave the fourth step its turn.
The sixteenth, the half step Mara had called for after the third step slipped. Sen turned the jack’s pump handle the smallest amount she could, her chapped hand barely moving, her eyes on the dial gauge.
The seat moved.
Mara heard it. Through the graft. Through the bench, where her other palm lay flat beside the feeler blocks. Through the lattice’s skin. A hair’s movement of the distorted seat back toward round.
And the pin dropped.
A sound. Short. Clean. A small metallic click, like a key in a good lock. The spring-loaded pin, sliding off the rib’s foot face and into its hole, and seating, and stopping.
Mara heard it through the graft and through the bench at once. Two sounds that were one sound. In her palm and behind her ear.
The lock closed.
