The second retired shell opened cleanly, and that made Eshel uneasy.
It was the one beyond Sable on the old route, behind the second of the three sealed valves. Sen’s crew had opened its valve from the valve gallery by hand, under the regulating heart’s governor, now that the heart was seated and the condition on the gallery wall was met. Its branch was a spur off the Sable branch: the same buffer, the same cam, a second line out from the eighth module’s outlet.
Eshel read its response against the model.
“In step,” he said. “With the model.” He read it again. “Every reading. The shell’s answering at exactly the rate I worked.” He read the next. “Matching.” And the next. “Matching.”
He read them all. There was not a single disagreement between the model and the gauges, for the first time since the collar went on.
He did not look pleased.
Mara had seen Eshel pleased exactly twice: at Halvek’s letter, and when the second trial held the lag fix. Both times he had read the figure three times before he let himself smile. This time he read the figures four times and did not smile at all.
