Dressing into a deep-plunge canvas diving dress was an exercise in submitting one’s body to the cold, claustrophobic reality of clockwork preservation.
Tomas sat on a rough pine bench on the salvage barge. He extended his legs into the heavy vulcanized canvas trousers. The fabric was nearly a quarter of an inch thick, stiffened by forty years of cold storage. It smelled of stone pitch, sulfur, and ancient rubber. Inside, the suit was lined with thick wool flannel that chafed against his bare calves.
Jared Vance knelt before him, pulling the heavy cowhide boots over Tomas’s feet. Each boot was an instrument of ballast. The soles were two-inch plates of solid cast lead, strapped to the foot with three heavy brass buckles, weighing twenty pounds per boot.
“Wiggle your toes, judge,” Jared ordered, his breath puffing white in the freezing air. “If the flannel bunches at the heel, the lead sole will pinch the skin until you bleed before you reach the bottom rung.”
Tomas bent his feet. The boots were crushing in their dead weight. It anchored his legs to the barge deck like oak posts driven into gravel.
Beside him, two veterans of the Bellwether watch were helping Sile Rook into the second suit. Sile’s broad, scarred chest barely squeezed into the heavy canvas bodice, the vulcanized collar pulling tight against the purplish keloid tissue on his neck.
