By mid-afternoon on Day 43, the heat had reached its blistering zenith, baking the white limestone quarry into an oven of dazzling light and shimmering mirages.
On the high rock outcrop that overlooked both surveyed parcels, Kezra Venn sat on an empty wooden cable tray, her bonded notebook open across her knees. Beside her, Fellis Dain was sharpening his rope-splicing knife. Meanwhile, Paxa Sel leaned against a timber sighting tripod, shading her eyes with a slate board.
Fellis stopped his whetstone. He looked across the two hundred paces of shimmering air that separated the broken road on the cliff from the southern quarry bench.
“Kezra,” Fellis began, his brow furrowed with thoughtful concern, “when you stand on the outer edge tomorrow morning with your book open, how much can the class actually tell you about what’s happening at the other site?”
Kezra rested her fingers against the rag-paper leaf of Page 014.
“It tells me whether the spatial frame is intact,” she answered carefully. “It tells me whether the strata soundings have drifted, whether moisture has piled up in the deep drift, and whether any living creature larger than a field mouse has stepped across the boundary plane.”
“And what if someone leaves a tool barrow on the seam?” Fellis asked, pointing with the tip of his knife. “What if a tired guard at the southern bench sets down an iron crowbar, or drops a timber wedge, or leaves an empty water cask resting half an inch across the line…
