The tissue inside the broken frame joint had five lobes, not three.
Irik Vann knelt beside the empty crop channel with both hands outside the black housing. Caleb held the housing open with the short pry bar while his ruined climbing rig hung loose from his waist.
Two frame lobes wrapped copper tubes. Three pressed toward Socket Six.
"Different cut," Irik said. "Different vessel map."
Sefa caught one drop already shed onto the metal. Its oxygen carrier bound iron instead of North's copper salt. Two old cautery scars crossed the organ, and a newer clamp scar closed one end.
The tissue had survived more than one surgery. No scar supplied a species, place, or person.
Irik used a wooden probe along the newest clamp line. Natural vessels ended flush against the scar. The copper tubes entered through holes cut after cautery and carried pressure into tissue that had once fed itself.
"Removed from a living body and installed here," she said. "This organ in this joint."
