Pek Orsa pulled the manual bar against her chest.
The wound spring fought her through both hands. Its force ran into the tooth carriage and stopped one metal width from driving the blade deeper into North's socket.
"The bar is current. Start moving the five," Pek said from the service throat.
North's shoulder continued rising beneath the yard.
The clinic's new brace stood on fixed black stone. Its upper steel crossed beneath the green floor eye, but five patients still occupied the powered platform above it. Doma's body lay beside the hand pump under a clean clinic sheet.
The pelvic-frame patient moved first.
Irik lowered two ordinary wall lines around the tile section holding his bolts. The floor-crack patient drew a square around the frame with Doma's red chalk. Rook opened his brass collar until the gantry lowered that square onto the fixed brace.
The bolts stopped at their marks.
