They followed her, Gryste not trying to hide his irritation. ‘I’ve got work to do, even if no one else has,’ he grumbled.
Tiaan put two chips against the wall of the furnace where it was practically red-hot, and two more where it was just hot enough to burn a fingertip. She left them there for five minutes then retrieved them with a pair of tongs.
Back in her cubicle she read their auras. ‘The first two are completely dead. The others have a faint aura, though it’s fading. You see!’ she said triumphantly. ‘Make them really hot and they won’t work at all. Less hot, they work for a while, then fail.’
‘You’re saying that your hedrons were sabotaged,’ Gi-Had exclaimed. He exchanged glances with the foreman, whose face had gone stubbornly blank.
‘I don’t see how it could be anything else,’ Tiaan said. ‘The crystals never see sunlight from when they’re mined to when they reach our workshops, and once the operators receive the controllers no one could guard them more jealously. But put them against the wall of the furnace for five minutes and they’re useless. Anyone could have done that.’
‘Can you tell who?’
‘I’ve picked up strange traces in the little bit of aura that was left, but I can’t read them. I would need a really strong crystal to do that. Or perhaps with my pliance …’
‘Haahhh!’ Gi-Had let his breath out in a hissing sigh. Going to the door, he looked out and closed it. ‘Then we do have a spy among us.’
‘So it would seem.’
‘You’d better find out before the perquisitor does.’ He looked irritable again.
‘I’m trying, but …’
‘No excuses now!’ Gi-Had snapped. ‘Our soldiers are dying every minute for want of clankers to protect them. If I can’t produce our quota, I’m likely to end up in the front-lines. At my age!’
‘I can only work for ten minutes before I get the headaches.’
‘Then get someone to help you. Irisis doesn’t look too busy today.’
‘She tried it yesterday,’ Tiaan said. ‘It hurt her badly.’
‘She accuses you of trying to kill her,’ said the overseer.
‘I did not ask her to touch my helm.’
‘Well, find someone else.’
‘No one else has the experience, or the control.’
‘There must be someone. There’s a thousand people in this manufactory, dammit!’
‘Would you ask a blacksmith to make your wife a necklace? Or a librarian to work the foundry? No one else here can do it, Overseer Gi-Had.’
‘Then go see the apothek, have him mix a potion for the headaches, and get to work! Everything is resting on you, Tiaan.’
‘And the spy?’ she said quietly.
‘Gryste will make that his first priority.’
‘I’ll begin on it right away,’ said the foreman sourly. ‘As if I don’t already have enough on my plate.’
Gi-Had scribbled Tiaan an authorisation for the apothek. ‘Come on, foreman, we’ve work to do.’ They hurried off. The overseer was at home with ores and furnaces and metal, all things mechanical, but the work done here was well beyond his comprehension. He did not like that.
Tiaan came back from the dispensary without the balm, which would require some time to prepare. Taking several glasses of tarry water, she rubbed her temples and went to see what the prentices were doing. Darya was head-down at her grinding wheel. Vyns and Ru-Dan were adjusting a set of clamps over another crystal, careful not to damage it. The other prentices were busy at their benches.
‘Where’s Gol?’ Tiaan asked.
Ru-Dan looked up and said something to Vyns, who steadied the crystal while she strolled over, taking off goggles and dust mask. Ru-Dan was short and plump, with a cheerful round face marked (though not marred) by a round pox scar just above the corner of her mouth.
‘I beg your pardon?’ Ru-Dan smoothed back chestnut hair with a hand glittering with powdered crystal.
‘I was looking for Gol.’
‘Haven’t seen him for an hour or two.’
‘What was he doing then?’
The prentice hesitated, not wanting to get Gol into trouble.
‘Nothing, I’ll bet!’ said Tiaan. ‘When you see him, tell him I want to see him immediately.’
Ru-Dan nodded. ‘Did you want anything else? Vyns and I are mounting a crystal right now.’
‘That was all.’ Then, as Ru-Dan walked back, ‘Have you seen Irisis?’
‘She was in your workroom a while ago.’
Tiaan felt a twinge of unease. ‘Oh, thanks!’
Some hours later, Irisis appeared at Tiaan’s cubicle with a small jar in her hand. ‘I was going past the apothek and he asked me to give you this,’ she said frostily.
‘Thank you.’ The label said to rub a small amount on her temples every four hours, or more frequently if the headache did not go away.
Pulling off the lid, Tiaan took a smear of balm on her fingertip and began to massage it into her forehead. The skin grew warm. Her headache, which had been a dull throb for the past hour, faded slightly. Putting the jar to one side, she drew the wire globe toward her and looked around for the helm.
She could not see it anywhere. Tiaan rifled through the clutter on the bench. Surely Irisis wouldn’t have taken it? Could she be the saboteur? It hardly seemed possible. But she had nothing to lose by undermining Tiaan, and everything to gain.
Tiaan dismissed that as a fancy brought on by overwork and not enough in her belly. Heading out the door to the refectory, she saw something bright lying hard up against the wall. Her helm! It was bent out of shape, though nothing she couldn’t fix. How had it got there? She’d left it up the other end of the bench.
It would not have been so deformed from falling off the bench. It must have been thrown, or struck! With a growing feeling of alarm she checked the crystal and immediately saw the crack, which went right across the hexagon of bubbles. Small curving cracks radiated away from one point, as if it had been struck with a hammer.
Tiaan put the helm on her head, already knowing what she was going to find. It was completely dead. The crystal was ruined.
EIGHT
After reporting the damage to Gi-Had, who had roared ‘Gryste, get in here!’ Tiaan returned to the workshop. There was only one solution, reluctant though she was. She would have to ask old Joe to find her another crystal.
She did not want to. Tiaan even toyed with the idea of going to the sixth level by herself to avoid troubling him, but that would be irresponsible. Joe would be furious, and what if she had an accident? No, what he could do in safety would be foolhardy for her to attempt.
Joeyn was back on the fifth level in the place he had been working earlier in the week. He looked pleased to see her, even when, with some reluctance, she explained why she had come. She showed him the damaged crystal.
‘I thought we might need to go down again.’ He pressed his lunch on her.
Tiaan took one of the spicy meal cakes. It was delicious, though hot; sweat broke out on her forehead. ‘I didn’t want to ask you.’
‘Why not?’
‘I hate asking people for favours. And you’ve done so much already.’
‘I hope you weren’t thinking of going to the sixth level by yourself,’ he said with a steely glint.
Tiaan looked down at her boots. One lace had come undone. She tied it.
‘This is my work, Tiaan. My life. If I had to go to the sixth level a hundred times I’d do it cheerfully. Especially for you.’
She could think of no answer to that.
‘Besides, I carried a bit of formwork in yesterday,’ he went on. ‘Not much, just a beam and a couple of props, but it’ll be safer than before.’
He sketched the arrangement on the floor with his knife. ‘Want to go?’
‘Might as well.’
This time, the trip did not seem quite so doom-laden. In the cavern she stood well back while Joeyn gauged the height with a folding ruler.