TURBINE NAVE

The turbine casing rises from floor to vault, leaving the inspection walk with the proportions of a service ledge inside somebody else's monument. Numbered coolant bundles follow its flank. Their inspection tags flutter like petitions on a shrine, each movement small enough to dismiss until the whole run is moving together. I followed the bundle markings along the rail; the last inspector had ticked every interval and signed none of the spaces reserved for reassurance.

Spent casks arrive here after the burn, with seals and handling entries already completed. Through the viewing ports they remain hot to the eye: a bruise of colour shifts where the gauge permits a cold-handling notation. I copied the reading and the visible condition separately. The gauge may satisfy the receiving desk; it does not undertake to stand where the next pair of hands will stand. The rails retain a cart-wheel shine beneath a schedule whose cancelled hours have been scratched through brass.

The south rail carries the petition wire beside the coolant run, so an inspection tick and a request to come home pass through the same draught. Neither is to be cleared as loose packing. Before taking a watch at the glass, complete the Hot Eye reaction drill. Catch the glow before it hides. A missed flare costs little here; that allowance belongs to the drill and must not be carried onto the handling floor.