Chapter 62: CHANGE THE RESCUE

RAIGORO’S POV

Raigoro called for Foreman Rusk and handed him the priority correction from Blackharrow.

Rusk recognized the crew code immediately.

"Kollen. Lower maintenance."

"Separate roster?" Raigoro asked.

"Yes."

"And no one merged it into the emergency count."

Rusk looked at the main shift board.

"No."

"That changes after today."

Raigoro called Master Engineer Var and the ventilation master to the table again.

The lower gate entry, maintenance schedule, and route diagram reached Rellan with the next scheduled relay the following morning.

Master Var traced the lower service route on the old plan.

"The first section is probably stable. Beyond it, a support wall shifted after the collapse. Air is poor."

"Can you reach the wall safely?" Raigoro asked.

"With a small inspection team, roped to the safe side."

Foreman Rusk pointed toward the connecting maintenance gallery.

"That route is shorter."

"Older, narrower, and the air is worse," Var said.

Rusk tapped one finger against the shorter route.

"We are losing time."

Master Var faced him.

"Sending a full rescue team into a passage we have not inspected will not buy it back."

Raigoro looked at Var.

"Your recommendation?"

"Inspect the shifted wall. No larger team until they report."

"Do it."

Foreman Rusk studied the maintenance schedule again.

"Kollen’s crew would have started at the lower ventilation junction."

"Would have?" Raigoro asked.

"They inspect while moving. If they found damage, they stopped. If they did not, they continued through the service branch."

Master Var traced the route with one finger.

Two turns. One narrow connector. A lower chamber beyond the shifted wall.

"So Blackharrow found their intended route," he said.

"Correct."

Raigoro looked at the six names attached to the record.

The correction had not delivered six men to a point on the map. It had restored six people to the rescue problem.

That was enough to change what Rellan had to do.

"Assume they followed the full inspection route unless evidence contradicts it," he said. "Search each section as the engineers clear it. No one skips the first branch because the schedule says they were meant to end farther down."

Foreman Rusk nodded.

Master Var added another condition.

"The inspection team carries no heavy excavation equipment past the first support check. If the wall is worse than the plan suggests, weight and vibration become part of the problem."

"What follows them?" Raigoro asked.

"Air line. Light tools. Marking cord. One rescue litter held at the safe side until we know whether anyone beyond the wall can walk."

"And if the passage will not take a litter?"

"We determine that from the passage."

Raigoro preferred that to an answer made cleaner for his benefit.

Rusk sent for two miners who had worked the lower service route before the collapse. One had repaired drainage there the previous month. The other knew where the passage narrowed badly enough that a loaded stretcher would have to be turned sideways.

Raigoro listened while they corrected the old route diagram.

One support post had been replaced.

One side recess had been sealed.

The ventilation junction had been moved several paces after a leak.

The Citadel copy had not known any of that.

Raigoro had already expected the working map at Rellan to be better.

Now he had proof.

His wife’s message had put six people back into the rescue. Now the miners and engineers around the table had to determine how to reach them without adding another trapped crew to the count.

Master Var chose six: two structural specialists, two Rellan miners who knew the passage, one ventilation specialist, and one line man.

The six-man inspection team prepared.

Raigoro sent the correction to every rescue desk.

The original heading was replaced:

TOTAL RECORDED UNDERGROUND AT COLLAPSE: 37.

Current extraction status would remain beneath it and change as workers came out.

The six would not remain on a separate unofficial list or carry an uncertain-worker note. If they had entered the mine and never exited, they belonged to the count until evidence proved otherwise.

The changed count and the new rescue route both met the standard for an immediate dispatch to Blackharrow.

Rusk looked toward the main-gallery plan.

"And the original rescue?"

"Continues," Raigoro said.

The foreman nodded.

Six newly counted workers did not make the other trapped miners less urgent. The lower service route received a separate inspection team because Rellan now knew it had people to find there and still had enough trained men to keep the main rescue moving.

Raigoro would not correct one omission by creating another.

Before the team descended, Raigoro wrote:

COUNT CORRECTED. THIRTY-SEVEN. CONTROLLED ATTEMPT BEGINNING TOWARD LOWER SERVICE ROUTE.

Then he added a second line.

THE RECORDS CHANGED THE RESCUE.

He did not write who had found them.

The Citadel already knew.

The inspection felt slow because every minute below ground carried another question about air, stone, and how long the trapped workers could wait.

Raigoro remained in the mine yard for the first report, then moved to the middle station after Master Var certified the central incline and staging chamber stable for command, medical support, and relay work.

The difference in distance mattered.

Messages that took twenty minutes to travel from the lower teams to the surface could reach him here in five.

Master Var stopped him before the descent.

"You stay behind the marked support line."

Raigoro looked at him.

"Yes."

"I am serious."

"So am I."

Master Var muttered, "Now you know how the Duchess feels."

Raigoro looked at him.

Master Var suddenly found the nearby rope coil worth inspecting.

The middle station sat deep enough that daylight no longer existed.

Oil lamps lit timber braces along the walls.

Dust coated everything.

Rescue workers moved through in rotations, emerging from blocked galleries with gray faces and exhausted shoulders before fresh crews replaced them.

Raigoro stayed where Master Var had cleared him to stay.

A runner arrived from the lower service inspection.

"Shifted wall is standing."

Master Var stepped forward.

"Cracking?"

"Some."

"Fresh?"

"Two lines. We marked them."

"Air?"

The ventilation specialist with the runner answered.

"Bad past the wall. Better than expected before it."

"Can you extend the line?"

"Yes."

"How long?"

"Fifteen minutes."

"They can go," Foreman Rusk said.

Raigoro waited for Master Var’s assessment.

The engineer considered, then nodded.

"Controlled rescue. One team only. Air line first. Heavy tools stay behind the shifted wall until we know what is beyond it."

Raigoro gave the order.

The first rescue team moved toward six people who had been absent from the official count until Blackharrow corrected it.

The mine did not care that Blackharrow had finally corrected its paper.

It had already begun moving again.

A sharp crack carried through the middle station.

Every miner stopped.

Master Var raised one hand.

"Quiet."

Another sound followed from deeper in the mine, stone grinding against stone. Master Var did not hesitate.

"Everyone away from the eastern wall."