Chapter eightThe cause of the trouble was instantly obvious.
What was to be done to rectify the problem was not as readily obvious.
Where that confounded shuckerchun had sucked off some of the strakes, the hole had been roughly patched with timber. The new wood was much lighter than the original scantlings. By the immutable laws of fate, the vaol-paol, two strikes had been scored in almost the same area.
I thought of that Shank varter crew Seg and I had reduced. Maybe their ballista had been the very one, keeping its aim true, to send two chunks of rock into this very spot. The patchings lay in splinters. The baulk of timber supporting the armored power box had been knocked all skew-whiff. The two iron plates with popped rivets had fallen off. So that the second strike had come whistlin
