Dream d1967-s: The Bellows Court, Second Pass

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where we came back to the Bellows Court with eyes more seasoned than the first time through.

The forge-engine roared at the same pitch, that low insistent bellow that you stop hearing after a while and then hear all over again when you stop to listen. The red light lay thick on the iron walls, on the cracked gauge housings, on the slag-runnels still carrying heat in their grooves. Nothing had changed. That was the problem.

The Builder went first this time, crouching at the joints where the main conduit runs into the distribution block. She pressed her palm flat against a coupling, then lifted it and pressed again two inches lower. "Dirty," she said, not to anyone in particular. "Not blocked. Dirty. The power is reading one thing through the joint and something else comes out the other side. There is a conversion happening that nobody planned for."

The Weather Reader moved along the bench without being asked. She had her book of readings out, the pages curling at the corners from earlier passes. She held two fingers near the relief valve and counted under her breath. When she stopped counting she wrote something down and showed the Builder. The Builder studied it the way she studies things that don't add up, which is to say she tilted her head and went very quiet.

The Scavenger had drifted to the discard piles against the far wall, which was where you would expect him to drift. He picked up a length of dead conduit, turned it over, set it down. Picked up a cracked gauge housing, held it toward the forge-light. He had a way of reading discards the way other people read faces.

Oxy watched the live gauge from the cool channel, which was where Oxy was most comfortable, and where the reading was apparently clearest. "It jumps on the upstroke," they said. "Not on the down. Whatever is wrong is happening on the compression side, not the release."

That was the thing about the second pass. The first time through a place like this you notice what is present. The second time you notice what is happening. The Builder and the Weather Reader put their pages together on the bench. Rurik sat beside the bench and watched them both, his tail tucked neat around his paws, his green eyes moving from one page to the other.

Lano had found the warmest corner of the cool channel and was curled there, nose on paws, watching Oxy watch the gauge. One ear stayed up.

We had everything the Court was willing to show us. The question was what we were going to do about it.