The Ancient Boundary Pylon stood unmoving against the freezing void, its black star-iron surface drinking in the dim light of the dying day.
Lin Tao knelt at its six-sided base, his breath emerging in small, rigid cubes of white mist. Beside him, Tie Shan held the end-post loop of the sixty-pace braided star-iron thick ship rope, his massive right hand clamping the steel cable with the unmoving grip of a shipyard winch.
“Bring the cable around the third facet,” Lin Tao instructed. His voice low and was cold and exact. “We must wrap it three full turns to distribute the friction load across the Precursor alloy.”
Tie Shan nodded once, stepping around the obelisk.
With his left arm still strapped securely in its linen sling, the giant handled the fourteen-gauge star-iron thick ship rope using only his powerful right arm and the heavy moving mass of his torso. The cable, thick as a man’s thumb and cold as river ice, hissed against the black iron faces of the pylon.
Tie Shan completed the third wrap. He pulled the slack taut until the braided steel sang with a low, metal hum.
Lin Tao moved to the base of the pylon, inspecting the wraps.
