Anwen’s voice came over the Lorn link, and she started with the gradient.
“It’s too steep,” she said.
Mara was at the slate on its stand in the interface chamber, with the seven-point map on its screen and the growth plan beside it: the Founders’ sequence, translated from the records into the crew’s terms, with the gradient at each stage. She had sent it to Lorn an hour before.
“The gradient,” Anwen said. “In the Founders’ sequence. Root to seam across the seed ring’s face. It’s too steep. It changes too fast for anyone to watch.”
Mara looked at the plan.
“The Founders could run it that steep,” Anwen said, “because they had an operator in the field who could feel it change. One person, feeling it, faster than anyone could watch. You don’t have that. You’ve got seven gauges, one reading a second, and two operators at two sets.” Her voice was blunt. “At that gradient, the grain changes faster than your map. Nobody can watch it.”
“So?”
“Lower it,” Anwen said. “Let it take longer. The longer it takes, the more hands can see it go wrong.”
