It was apparent that the scrying mages had lost even more interest in them, since Kordas easily palmed a pass-token from an unguarded drawer and they were within the Fabrication Annex moments later. To have called it a maze of wooden beams, brass, steel, and crates would be an understatement. Some of the work areas were five stories tall, connected by wooden trestles, and most of the guardrails were broken. There were pockmarks and cracks almost everywhere, and in some places, mending-plates were three or four thick holding braces together. The place was loud, very loud, and Dolls moved in crews without taking any special notice of Kordas, Beltran, and Star. Steam jetted out from hundreds of places, striking condenser awnings that turned the vapor into rain that showered down into troughs with every major hammerfall, between one and four times a second. The whole of the place sounded like a waterfall, with headache-baiting clashes of steel mixed in. Sparks flew from grinders where Dolls skillfully smoothed down stampings pulled from huge dies, and yet, there were areas where the air was not only chilly, there were actually icicles hanging under machinery, all lit by a blue glow.

“This is how pellets are made,” Star narrated. “Thin sheets of seaweed gelatin are fed in here. The dies above drop onto these banks of pistons, driving the tray here downward and compressing air as it goes. The searing grid encapsulates the air with the gelatin, then hardens it into the small spheres you know. It was found that this size alone was the safest and most reliable for pellets. Poomers simply use more of them, rather than using a larger, more unstable size.”

The machine was huge, larger than a warship. They walked down two stories of steps, and they hadn’t yet reached its base. By the look of it, it was one of sixteen in the Annex, each one a barge-length apart. “Finished pellets are ejected by these felt-padded arms as the piston returns to the top, and all the pellets fall safely into these trays on rollers, which then pack into standardized crates.” The machine clanged again and hundreds more pellets dropped into trays. “This is as close as we should get.”

Star pointed to a crew of at least twenty Dolls, hanging from or crawling through the nearest machine, some oiling, some tightening bolts or tapping shims. “If the tolerances shake loose while we are near, an entire tray might detonate.”

“How often does that happen?” Beltran shouted.

“No more than once in—”