On the afternoon of Day 127, with the four thousand and ninety-six paces of Empty Choir’s outer edge checked, cleaned. Then he leveled to within half a handspan, the four climbers gathered near the center of the plateau. The winter sun stood pale and bright in the southwest, casting long blue shadows across the vast granite floor. A thin crust of morning hoarfrost was burning into gas under the dry alpine wind. That left the dressed stone benches clear and cold beneath their boots.
Between the two whistling cabins stood the central survey small roof-dome—a circular stone turret twelve paces across, capped with a domed copper roof that had weathered over two hundred years to a dark, chalky green. Recessed into the flat stone slabs beneath the small roof-dome’s arched entry was the heavy iron hatch covering the five-hundred-and-twelve-pace upright reference shaft. Its bronze hinges were thick as a man’s forearm, secured with lead-sheathed square bolts that Voss had spent two hours loosening with oil and a striking wrench.
Voss rested his boot on the hatch rim, leaning both hands upon the handle of his heavy miner’s pick. His eyes wandered across the flat, open expanse of the plateau. Then he turned southward toward the jagged, saw-toothed horizon where Stonewake Citadel lay twelve miles away across the snowfields. The old timberman’s face was creased with deep squint-lines from the alpine glare, his breath pluming in steady white bursts against the gray rock of the peak.
