Recovery Walker Nine stopped with one foot on the dead shell and one foot in red soil. Steam left two pipes behind its knees. The pressure pulses differed by half a beat. No hidden field joined the legs.
Four people watched Basalt through four chest windows.
The front pilot raised both empty hands. The boiler operator kept one hand on a red wheel. A chain keeper held a split lever across her knees. The rear station contained a man with blood dried beneath one ear and a separate brass command handle.
Farah opened no voice line. The metal slate had stated a command. It had not established the crew, the date, or anyone's current authority.
Hara Vek read the walker through Heat Room Six's grounded tooth.
"Lower Foundry built three recovery frames before our room was taken," she said. "That is the ninth serial. I never saw it completed."
Farah asked who had controlled it. Hara answered, "Shift retrieval. Four stations. No station could walk it alone."
