The air-powered dispatch vault sat directly beneath the copper roof beams of the high office wing, fifty feet above the Great Round hall.
It was a cathedral of screaming brass.
Along the curved granite walls, two hundred air-powered launch-tubes radiated outward like the spokes of a huge bronze wheel. Each tube was three inches in width, cast from heavy bell-metal and wrapped in tensioned steel bands to withstand the bone-shaking steam pulses of the central marrow boilers. Brass pipe hubs the thickness of oak trunks hissed with tightly packed vapor, their pressure needles quivering in the red sectors of sixty lead-faced dials.
In the center of the vault stood the master routing switchboard: a half-round desk of black slate. He was flanked by four-foot bronze levers that engaged the blood dampers connecting Alexandria-Khorat to its outer districts.
Vane Vale stood before the switchboard, his dark eyes reflecting the steam-washed brass.
The merchant had stripped off his wool coat, working in his linen shirt with his sleeves rolled high. In his left hand, he held his brass-bound counting frame. With his right, he tapped a brass wrench against the spreading pipe hub. He tested the sound deep ring of the steam lines.
