Dream d1891-s: Off True

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the Conduit Yard let us in through a gap in its iron fence, and the Weather Reader called the sky before we were three steps inside.

"Pressure holding," she said. "But not for long."

The yard ran in a long corridor of pipe and grating, the floor puddled with old slag that had gone cold and grey over decades, cracked gauges on every post showing numbers that had not been trusted in years. Forge-light came from the south end in slow red pulses. We could feel it in our boots.

Rurik moved ahead, picking his way between the conduits. He stopped and looked back, sat down, and waited. That is how we knew.

The casting had come off the line.

A heavy iron sleeve, as wide across as my arm is long, had shifted under its own weight and rested crooked against the run of conduit it was meant to seal. The whole count was off: the Wireman's gauge at the near post read three marks past true, and when the Listener knelt beside the pipe and put his ear to it, he said the rhythm inside was arrhythmic, counting high and then low in no pattern anyone could follow.

"We can't measure from this end," the Wireman said, not discouraged, just stating it plainly.

The Builder crouched at the casting and put both hands on it. "It isn't cracked," she said. "It only drifted. The seat is still good."

The Scavenger found shims in a rusted crate near the grating, three wedges of iron that had been cut for exactly this kind of work. He laid them out carefully on the slag-floor. Lano sniffed each one, her nose working along the cold metal, tail low and steady with concentration.

Oxy circled the base of the casting twice, reading it. "The count will correct if the sleeve goes back true," they said. "No point adjusting the gauge first."

That was the order then. The Builder and the Wireman eased the sleeve back toward its seat, the Scavenger tapping the shims into place with a short bar, the Listener calling increments by ear, saying "closer" and "closer" and finally "there." I held the book of readings open so the Weather Reader could call off the reference marks as the gauge needle swung back through the range.

It stopped at true.

Rurik did not move until it did. Then he stood, stretched, and walked on toward the deeper yard. Lano trotted after him, one sharp bark, no more, just to say she had seen what he had seen.

The forge-light pulsed again to the south, and we followed.