Chapter 355: The Line East
Kai went down into the first zone at dawn.
He did not need to. The conduit was two years seated and the entity was calm, and the crew's shallow holes had not come near the channel. But the Director had sent him east to do the work where it could be seen, and there was no one here to see it but his own team. That was reason enough. A man who only checked his work when watched was not doing the work. He was performing it.
He found a flat place over the channel, sat, and let the Origin Body settle into the stone.
It went in with no grip. That still surprised him a little, even now. The old body had reached into stone like a hand closing — friction, effort, a thing held against its will. The Origin Body found the level and rested there, the way water finds the bottom of a cup. He went down through the green soil, through the deep stone, to the channel two years old, and read it.
