The underground vault beneath the ruined guard post was silent save for the steady drip of water drops and the hiss of cooling stone.
Lin Tao sat on an overturned ammunition crate, resting his forearms across his knees. The oilcloth parcel containing the sky data-shard lay atop a heavy lead-lined land-mapper’s bench in the center of the room. Even muffled under four layers of slate-treated cloth, the crystal radiated a steady, pulsing violet glow that turned the rough granite walls the color of bruised plums.
The air in the chamber had climbed to thirty-four degrees. The heat-rising heat thrown off by the shard carried a dry, biting scent of spark-charged air and baked quartz.
“Keep your arm still,” Doctor Su commanded. He stepped into the dim lantern light with a wooden basin and a roll of boiled hemp bandage.
Su knelt beside Lin Tao, setting the basin of cold spring water onto the dirt floor. She inspected his left forearm. There, the scalding violet high-pressure fluid from the carrier iron-puppet had soaked through his canvas sleeve. The skin was mottled with angry red patches and three large, fluid-filled blisters that throbbed with every beat of his heart.
“You managed to avoid third-degree black rot,” Su said. Her voice was sharp as she used bronze shears to snip away the charred threads still adhering to the outer skin. “Another half-second of contact. The heat would have cooked the tendon sheaths right off the bone.”
