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The Steel Orb
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I let Fortress build his wagon first, and insisted that he take the best spring. Then I sat down with the silt tablet.
My intuition had been to mix fire and water. Or something like that. Or burn water. Or--I sketched one design after another, trying to see how they would help a spring, or gears for that matter. Towards the end of the day, I sat down, perplexed, and wiped the slate clean. I had given up.
That night, I prayed my giving up. Then--it took me a long time to get to sleep.
In the morning, I left the springs alone entirely. I pulled out the metal lamp and made a nearly-sealed water tank to go above it. I put the water tank above the flame, and fitted something special to its mouth. By the end of the day, I was exhausted, and my fingers were sore.
The next day, Fortress wound the spring, and I took a tinderbox and lit the flame. He looked at me slightly oddly, and when he turned his cart around at the end of the first lap, looked at me gently.
My cart hadn't moved.
At the end of the second lap, he asked me, "Did your cart move?"
I said nothing.
At the end of the fourth map, he said, "Your cart is moving."
And it was. Steam from the heated tank was moving one part, which turned gears, to the effect that it was moving very slowly. And it continued moving slowly for the rest of the day, finally stopping after it had run a full seventy-two laps.
Fortress walked away from me with a look of amazement. "Unspoken, I've got to tell my friends about you."
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The Steel Orb
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