The growth chamber opened along the rim of the central well at the second hour of the morning.
Sen’s crew opened it. The shield at the interface chamber’s far end was not one wall but two: the thick curved glass, and beyond it, a narrower inner shield, a hand’s width of space between them. The crew chief released the inner shield’s latch with a key from Sen’s ring. It slid aside. A narrow gap opened in it, the width of a person. Beyond it, the rim.
Mara stood at the outer shield’s glass and looked through.
Beyond the narrow gap, energy moved.
There was no flame. No glow, exactly. It looked like depth. Like looking into clear glass that went on further than it should, into a distance that was not there. And in the depth, small lights. Points. Drifting. They would not hold a fixed distance; a point that seemed near would seem far a moment later without moving, as if the space between it and Mara were changing size.
The boundary. The edge of the folded region, where it pressed against the lattice. Where the collar held the wound.
She had seen it on the chorus’s model at Hearth’s wall, drawn in violet. She had not imagined it would look like this. Like nothing. Like depth.
