The cradle rose square this time.
Mara felt the weight come into the controller before the camera showed movement. The three feet lifted clear of their temporary shoes. Nothing caught. The pale mass inside the steel lattice drew inward as the circulation changed, then opened again in small folds. The whole living source moved, not a sample, its pressure casing and exchange channels intact.
She set it onto the rail carriage.
"Load seated," Nessa said from the tram.
Mara checked the far foot herself. "Seated. Source flow?"
"Holding," Benji answered.
"Tram release."
Hester released the docking clamps. The little cabin backed from the station collar, moved onto the rail and began its journey.
For a few seconds Mara could see its window directly through the Bore Room's camera. Benji had one hand raised. Then the angle changed, and the cabin became an object in black water, five people held inside a curve of metal and glass no wider than a work van. Their lines stayed with them through the protected bundle. The cradle traveled on its own carriage beside the tram, close enough for the source exchange to remain live, far enough that a shifted load could not strike the cabin.
Mara moved them more slowly than she could have walked. Nessa controlled the guide trim from inside the tram. The other controls stayed with Mara. When the rail crossed its first low support, the bundle lifted from the seabed rack and made a broad loop in the lights.
"Loop clear," Kit said.
She heard the effort beneath the words. He had his body turned awkwardly toward the little floor inspection panel, one hand feeding the internal slack so the exterior movement did not pull at the manifold.
The station lights shrank behind the tram. On its forward camera the rail appeared to go directly into nothing.
"Is the refuge light on?" Jonah asked.
"Yes," Nessa said.
"I can't see it."
"Different angle. We'll see after the second support."
Mara looked at the map though she knew it. Three hundred meters. A length she could run in less than a minute above water. Here it included everything they could not touch, every point where a soft line might meet a hard edge without a hand to move it. She had found the map reassuring until it acquired people.
Hester came into the Bore Room with the dock status. Her hose moved behind her, connected to the fixed station supply. She did not interrupt the crossing report. She stood beside Mara and took over the secondary camera so Mara could keep both hands on the rig.
At the second support the bundle stopped paying out.
Mara stopped both carriages. On Hester's camera a loop of the protected jacket lay held beneath a broken bracket. Inside the tram Kit put his head over the inspection panel.
"Return's flattening."
Benji leaned toward the pump. "Don't lift the manifold. It's pulling outside."
Mara could see the guide horn beneath the held loop. Nessa could turn it toward the bracket, opening the loop instead of hauling it tighter, while Mara paid out from the station. But that turn would draw Nessa's internal branch across the aisle.
The crawler waited at the refuge dock, where Mara had left it to receive them. Its short arm could have freed the jacket in seconds here. Three hundred meters away, it was a light on another screen.
"Kit. Take Nessa's slack. Keep it off the seat buckle. Nessa, turn the guide toward the support when I call."
Kit looked at Nessa. She had one hand poised over the trim. Her own loop lay against her knee.
"I can reach it," she said.
"You let go of trim, we pull it tight," Mara told her.
Kit braced one foot against the opposite seat and leaned across. His shirt rode up. The sleeve at his side stretched as he caught Nessa's branch and lifted it over the buckle.
"Have it," he said.
Mara released the station feed. "Turn."
Nessa turned the guide toward the bracket. The exterior loop widened. Kit's left shoulder drew back against his restraint; his own line had reached the end of its travel. A crease formed at the sleeve where it met his skin.
"Kit," Leonie said.
He shook his head at her. His hand stayed around Nessa's loop.
"Hold that setting," Mara told Nessa.
Nessa looked at the crease in his side. Her fingers lifted from the control, hovered there, settled again. She held. Mara paid out the last of the slack they needed. The horn carried the enlarged loop up and clear of the bracket.
The released bundle sprang outward.
Kit caught Nessa's branch with both hands. The pull went through his own fitting. He made a low, closed sound. A red mark spread beneath the sleeve's edge.
Jonah let the first surge pass before easing the balance toward its mark. The return rounded on Benji's display.
"Flow's back," Benji said.
Nessa locked the guide and reached across Kit's hands.
"Take it," he told her.
"I am."
"Both hands."
She put both hands around the loop. He let go. For a moment he remained across the aisle, unable to straighten without help. Leonie supported his own branch while he eased back into the seat.
She called the passenger names, checking each return. Nessa. Jonah. Benji. Kit. Four answers. She checked her own line last.
Kit lifted his shirt and looked at the red mark. When he lowered it, he kept one hand between the fitting and the restraint. His other hand shook over the inspection panel.
Nessa watched him.
"Keep it off me," he said, looking at the loop she held.
She moved it to the far side of her knees. He closed his eyes until Mara called the next movement.
The tram moved again.
They passed the second support. A pale band opened beneath the rail, moving away from the lights in a slow wave. Mara heard Benji inhale deliberately, a sound of wonder he had retained after need had gone. The source cradle's exchange trace dipped and steadied. It had finite reserves in the moving system, a whole living circuit spending itself through a gap between two useful places. They did not stop to test its patience again.
The refuge light appeared.
It was a warm spot on the forward camera. Jonah leaned toward it. Leonie looked over his shoulder without touching him. Kit kept watching the loop he had caught. Nessa's eyes moved from trim display to rail camera and back. Benji turned his head so he could see the light and hear the pump at once.
Mara wanted to be inside the tram with them. Not to stay. To have the authority of a hand on a person's sleeve instead of a voice through a speaker. The controller in front of her was the only place she could make that voice useful.
The cradle's far wheel reached the last rail joint.
"Slow," Nessa said.
Mara slowed. The load entered the refuge-side support. For a moment the number climbed sharply. She eased the pickup, let the carriage take its share and watched the structure settle.
Hester put the close camera on the new support pin. It held.
"Taking weight," Mara said.
"Flow steady," Benji answered.
The tram passed into the light of the Bell. Its little forward window reflected a larger window beyond, the broad dark curve they had watched from an empty room. Now people were arriving to stand in it.
Imani came into the Bore Room. She had the support log in one hand and a spare guide clip in the other, though there was nothing to clip now. She stood beside Hester and watched the five faces on the screen.
Benji saw the Bell's interior light through its service port.
"We're here," he said.
Nessa did not look away from the guide. "Not docked yet."
"I know. But here."
Mara brought the tram the final meter. She felt the receiving collar take contact, watched Hester's image of the seal surface and eased the carriage until the mating faces met square.
The first clamp engaged.
She kept her hands on the controls.