A structure weighing four million pounds doesn’t tolerate a soaked sub-base.
Frank stood on the seventh rung of his light metal ladder, his magnetic torpedo level resting firmly against the black glass edge of the Central Primordial Stele. The neon-green vial didn’t lie: one point eight degrees of out-of-plumb lean toward the south-southwest. Under standard world-size gravity, a three-hundred-foot massive stone obelisk with that degree of quirky loading generated eighty thousand foot-pounds of uncompensated sideways tearing force along its foundation footers. If left uncorrected, the solid strength of the entire monument would eventually reach its clockwork yield point, resulting in a total foundation shear that would collapse forty thousand tons of star-core black glass across the tiered arena.
Beneath the ladder, at the base of the monument, the ancient dragon-bone flat stone slabs were dark, discolored, and oozing a thin film of foul-smelling, stale grey moisture. Niu Mang crouched beside the western foundation slab, wearing his yellow spun-glass hard hat and a heavy split-cowhide work apron. He dug a calloused thumb into the joint between the marble pavers, sniffing the damp settled mud.
“Sub-grade is pure muck, Master,” Niu Mang called up. He wiped muddy grey silt against his heavy denim thigh. “The surface drainage from the upper terraces has been washing straight into this corner for thousands of years. The soil is fully waterlogged. The footing is basically floating on cold soup.”
