The northern wind grew sharper as the afternoon shadows lengthened across the white desolation.
Inside Trench Node 16, Lin Tao knelt beside Elder Chen’s master water-clock assembly. The device was a fine, detailed marvel of mortal care. Three linked brass cylinders filled with purified rapeseed oil. He drove a polished bronze gear catch wheel that released a sound strike at an exact, unvarying hum. Beside the clock, two oil lamps were shielded by horn lenses to prevent the draft from chilling the fluid and altering its thickness.
Tock. Tock. Tock. Tock.
Twenty-four strikes every second. To an untrained ear, the sound merged into a nonstop, buzzing rattle like the wings of a locust. But to Lin Tao’s test sight array, each strike was a discrete point along the timeline, spaced forty-one point six seven split seconds apart.
“Elder Chen, adjust the balance weight on the gear catch swinging weight by half a grain,” Lin Tao instructed. He held his brass measuring tongs against the gear catch arm. “The clockwork period is drifting by zero point zero four split seconds per cycle.”
Elder Chen carefully loosened the tiny thumbscrew with a pair of silver tweezers. It slid the lead balance weight upward a fraction of a tiny fraction of an inch.
