The cold stone of the Great Basalt Portal sent sound with terrifying fidelity.
Lin Tao pressed the side of his jaw firmly against the dark rock face, using the time bone of his skull as a clockwork sound pipe joint. In his right hand, he held a solid tube-shaped brass drift punch. In his left, a light brass machinist’s hammer. Beside him, Tie Shan stood with his boots braced wide, the narrowed star-iron wedge of his fourteen-pound pry-bar pushed in four inches into the clockwork engagement notch on the outermost nested ring.
“Hold tension on the ring, Tie Shan,” Lin Tao said, his voice quiet and level. “Don’t force the turn. Only hold five pounds of counter-clockwise torque.”
“Holding torque now, brother,” Tie Shan replied. His corded forearm muscles tightened under his rolled sleeves.
Lin Tao placed the flat tip of the brass drift punch against the first resonator port.
TAP.
The sharp metal strike rang through the gabbro monolith. Through the bone of his skull, Lin Tao felt the sound waves scatter through the internal locking chamber. The deepest ringing was a dull, muddy hum of four hundred and twenty hertz. A damped deep ring indicating that the main shear pin was misaligned and binding against the sleeve.
