The trial ran for an hour, and in the first ten minutes Mara missed three cues.
It began at the sixth hour of the evening, with the load sequence published on the plate and on every crew’s link: twenty loads, each with the name of the crew that had picked it. Tal shaft crew three. Lorn shelter wardens. The Meridian third-terrace district, with the crew lead’s name. Cinder night mains. Some were spikes. Some were slow climbs. One, picked by the Lorn school crew, was a sudden drop to nothing, held for thirty seconds, then a sudden return.
The heart stood on the bench. Seven modules in their frames, joined by their open seams, the eighth module’s place bridged with a plain pipe and a valve for the trial. Each governor’s position fed to the rack. Each seam’s gauge fed to the rack. The test line from the reservoir under Sen’s hand.
Mara stood at the trunk module. Anwen was on the Lorn link with every trace on her slate. Eshel at the rack. Tavin at the far end of the bench, at the bridging valve.
“Load one,” Mara said. “Tal shaft crew three. Slow climb to their shift demand.”
