Architect Neron's Arc

Chapter 7 of 8

One leg stood. Neron needed hundreds more. He looked at the empty mud around the single frame and did the math. Nevin could carry frames. Dax could count the herd. Three sets of hands could not raise a city. The roots he moved would dry by midday, and the herd would drift back. He worked faster and finished nothing. By dusk the second leg sat half-driven, cables loose. He knelt in the mud, too tired to stand. "You cannot lift the next frame alone," Nevin said. "I checked the crate. We have materials for forty legs. We have three workers." Neron pressed his hands to his eyes. "Then I need more than three." At dawn a boat crossed the mud on wide skids. A crew climbed out in orange vests and hard hats. Their leader walked straight to Neron. He was older, gray-bearded, with a tool belt worn smooth. He looked at the single finished leg, then at the mud, then at Neron. "You're the architect," the leader said. "Marcus Callahan. I run the crew. Someone launched a signal for labor. We came to see if the ground was real." He stamped one boot on the shelf. It held. He nodded once, satisfied. "It's real." Behind him a woman knelt by the loose leg and read the cables with her fingers. "Tension's wrong," she said, not unkindly. "I'm Maya. I'm the engineer. Whoever set this rushed it." A younger man in a dented hat hauled a frame off the boat without being asked. He set it down at the next mark and waited. Neron stood. For six chapters he had solved every problem with his own hands. Now strangers read his work and found it wanting. He felt the old pull to say he could manage. He did not. "I rushed it," Neron said. "I've been working alone. There's a herd that grazes this shelf. They trample the site by midday. I move their roots to draw them off. It buys hours, not days." Dax stepped forward from the crate's shadow. His cracked chest glowed blue in the gray light. "Fourteen animals," Dax said. "They come at dawn. They leave when the roots run dry. I count them. I can t-tell you when the site is clear." Maya looked at the android child, then at Marcus. "So he's our clock," she said. "He's our clock," Marcus said. He turned to his crew. "We drive legs in the clear window. We stage frames while the herd feeds. Nobody works the shelf when the kid says they're coming." He looked at Neron. "That your plan?" "That's the plan," Neron said. By noon four legs stood locked and true. The laborer stacked frames. Maya re-tensioned the cables Neron had rushed. Dax counted the herd and called the window. The work moved faster than Neron had moved in a week. Marcus wiped his hands. "Forty legs by month's end," he said. "If your supplies hold." Neron looked at the near-empty crate. They did not.