Too Heavy to Carry Any Other Way

Construction began back at the shoreline, close enough to Nettle's ship that the finished structure could eventually be loaded and carried out to the ring without a lengthy overland journey first.

The cables came first, shorter than the twenty-kilometer ski lift line by a considerable margin, but still substantial, woven from the same proven mithril-adamantium blend, calibrated this time for their specific load requirements rather than a continuous transport loop.

"...Four anchor cables for the main tube," Arista said, overseeing the braiding machine's steady output, "and four shorter support cables for the buoyancy platforms. Different load requirements for each. The short ones carry the tube beneath the platforms; the long ones keep the whole thing where we put it."

The anchors themselves came from lead this time, cast in simple, solid blocks, considerably cheaper and faster to produce than the adamantium screw-anchors they'd used before, and genuinely better suited to the actual job. Deadweight anchors, essentially, relying purely on mass rather than any mechanical grip on the seabed. Nothing here needed adamantium's strength or precision, and steel would have corroded steadily under permanent seawater exposure regardless. It just needed to be heavy, and stay that way indefinitely.

The tube's construction took the longest, outer lead shell fabricated in careful sections, each one tested individually for heat tolerance before being welded into the growing, continuous length, the inner tube built and fitted separately, sized precisely enough to leave a consistent, sealed gap between the two once joined, every seam checked and rechecked for airtightness before the vacuum pumps finally drew the gap down to nothing at all, until the whole passage stood wide enough for comfortable, side-by-side swimming and long enough to punch cleanly through the ring's full width with a generous safety margin on either end.

The four buoyancy platforms came next, sealed air chambers built into the underside of each one, tested individually before the platforms themselves were mounted at careful intervals above the tube, each connected by its own short support cable down to the structure below. Their combined displacement had been calculated against the finished weight of both lead walls, providing enough buoyancy to support the tube at the required depth beneath them. The four long mooring cables would handle the rest once the deadweight anchors reached the bottom, resisting the current and keeping the tube and its platforms fixed at exactly the position Claire's calculations demanded.

Weeks passed in the same steady, sustainable rhythm every previous major project had eventually settled into, testing each component individually, connecting them only once each piece had proven itself sound.

By the time the finished structure lay complete on the shoreline, it wasn't especially large by the standards of things Arista had built before. Six meters long, a little over two meters across, with four buoyancy platforms and enough cable to disappear hundreds of meters beneath it.

It was, however, made from an absolutely unreasonable amount of lead.

There was no way to actually move it.

Not by cart. Not by ship's crane. Not by any conventional method the crew had access to.

Arista studied the finished tube for a long moment, then turned, grinning, toward the sky.

"...Thoth?"

A familiar shape descended moments later, wings folding as he settled nearby, dish rotating toward her with patient attention.

"You require my assistance."

"Yes," Arista said, delighted. "Astute as always. Do you think you could lift this—" she gestured at the finished tube "—and put it onto the back of the ship?"

Thoth studied the structure's full mass for a long, careful moment, calculating.

"...Affirmative," he said finally. "Structural integrity of the tube itself should tolerate the lifting stress, provided contact points are distributed evenly along its length rather than concentrated at a single grip location."

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"That's exactly why I built it here instead of somewhere more convenient logistically," Arista admitted. "I knew from the start there was no practical way to transport something this heavy overland without building an entire transport system just for it. You were always the actual plan."

Thoth's dish tilted slightly, something that might have been quiet satisfaction settling into the gesture. "You designed an entire engineering solution around my specific capabilities."

"I designed it around the fact that you're the only transport option capable of moving something this heavy without risking structural damage," Arista corrected, grinning. "Which, functionally, is the same thing."

"I do not object to the distinction," Thoth said, already extending his claws carefully toward the tube's balanced center points, testing his grip with patient precision before committing to the full lift. "I find myself, once again, the answer to a problem requiring considerable scale."

"You usually are, these days," Arista said, watching him settle his grip properly, distributing the weight exactly as calculated. "Ready when you are."

Thoth beat his wings once, testing the load, then lifted, slow, careful, the tube rising cleanly off the shoreline, held steady and level in his claws, wings adjusting smoothly to the unfamiliar weight distribution.

"...Structural integrity maintained," he reported, climbing steadily toward the waiting ship. "Proceeding to delivery point."

Arista watched him go, the finished tube carried easily now toward Nettle's waiting deck, and felt the old, familiar satisfaction of a genuinely complete plan finally, properly coming together.

Thoth set the tube down carefully onto Nettle's deck, wings adjusting to the ship's gentle sway, lowering the massive structure with the same precise, distributed control he'd used lifting it.

"...Perfect placement," Claire said, checking the tube's alignment against the deck's reinforced mounting points. "Not even off by a few centimeters."

"Precision was required," Thoth said, simply, already stepping back to survey his own work.

Arista expected him to depart at that point, the job apparently finished, and was mildly surprised when he instead settled onto a clear stretch of deck space, wings folding, dish tilting toward the horizon ahead.

"...You're staying?" she asked.

"I have calculated the probability of requiring further assistance during the unloading process at the ring itself," Thoth said, matter-of-fact. "Given the tube's mass, the deadweight anchors, and the precision required to suspend the structure correctly within the ring's boundary, the probability approaches one hundred percent."

"...You did math on whether we'd need you again."

"I did math on whether you would need me again," Thoth corrected. "The distinction matters little in practice, but I prefer precision in language regardless."

Arista grinned, genuinely touched by the sheer, thorough consideration behind it. "So you're just going to fly alongside the ship the whole way there."

"That is the most efficient solution," Thoth said, already settling into a comfortable resting posture on the deck, wings loosely folded. "Departing now and returning later would require additional flight time and introduce unnecessary delay at the critical moment. Remaining present eliminates that inefficiency entirely."

Bram, watching the exchange with quiet amusement, shook his head. "...He planned ahead better than we did."

"He usually does," Arista said, settling onto the deck near him, watching the shoreline slowly recede as Nettle guided the ship out toward open water. "Thank you, Thoth. Genuinely. You didn't have to think that far ahead."

"I found the calculation straightforward," Thoth said, though something in the careful way he said it suggested he'd genuinely, quietly wanted to be helpful regardless of how simple the math actually was. "I would also, if I am permitted to state a preference beyond pure efficiency, like to observe the mermaids myself, should we successfully make contact. I have not previously encountered a civilization defined by isolation rather than choice."

Arista studied him a moment, something specific occurring to her. "...Didn't you keep your distance from the submarine's actual launch? Rust risk, you said. Watched the whole thing from dry ground instead."

"I did," Thoth confirmed, unbothered by the reminder. "Exploration, purely for its own sake, carries no guaranteed return. I would not know what I was accepting rust exposure for until after the exposure had already occurred, if it produced anything worth the risk at all. The math did not favor participation."

"And this is different?"

"This is not exploration," Thoth said, simply. "I know precisely what this expedition is for. An entire civilization, isolated, waiting. The purpose is already established before I ever accept the risk, rather than discovered afterward, if at all. Some rust is an acceptable cost, weighed against that."

Nettle guided the ship away from the shoreline, and soon they were sailing steadily toward open water, Thoth's watchful presence a quiet, patient comfort at its center, all of them carrying the same unspoken hope toward a ring of boiling water and whatever waited, finally, on the other side.