Zarah Voss's Arc

Chapter 11 of 16

Zarah lifted a hull plate against the air and marked the frame lines. Then she reached for the skeleton she had planned to weld, and her hand closed on nothing. She had plates. She had a drive. But she had no frame to hold them. Without a rigid spine, the pod would buckle the instant the drive fired. She set the plate down and stared at the metal on the floor. Curved walls without bones were just scrap waiting to fold. Sylvana came through the workshop door on her mechanical legs. The plant woman moved carefully, her flower hair brushing the low frame. She was Thren's partner, the one who had grown Zarah a gill root and helped her dive for pearls. Zarah trusted her more than she trusted most machines. "Your face is bent like a branch under snow," Sylvana said. "I need a frame," Zarah said. "Straight rods, strong ones. I can't press them right, and I'm out of good ore." Sylvana went quiet for a moment. "There is a lake," she said. "A worm lives in it. Pale, with horns. It leaves metal behind. Coils of it, on the lake bed. Like a snail leaves a shell." She traced a spiral in the air. "You would need to straighten them." Zarah's eyes sharpened. "Show me." They went to the lake. Sylvana pointed to the still water. Below the surface, a long pale shape moved slow between the reeds. Horns curved back from its head. It glided past a heap of coiled metal rods stacked on the bed, bright even under the murk.