The snow had stopped.
Su Li set the bowl upside down on the stove, then turned and went to rummage through the cabinets in the study. A sea-chart scroll he had not touched in sixty years was stuffed at the very bottom, wrapped in a layer of oil paper whose corners had yellowed and gone brittle.
He spread the scroll across the table and pressed down both ends with his palms.
"Worm-eaten."
Su Li stared at the damaged patch in the lower-right corner of the chart. The markings for the southern deep sea had been dense to begin with; now, a large section had been chewed away, leaving several crucial mineral-vein routes broken off halfway.
Elonore brought over a lamp and crouched beside the table, studying it for a long while. "I remember this area. During the sea trials back then, I copied down a set of frequency data."
"Where's the copy?"
"With Talia."
Su Li tapped the worm-eaten edge with his fingers. Talia had left ten years ago for the Eastern Continent, and her letters had stopped several years back.
"Then we'll go by memory." He rolled up the chart. "As long as the direction is right. We'll deal with the details when we get there."
Elonore did not object. She rummaged through a cabinet for a while, then carried out a thick stack of blueprints. The outermost sheet read, "Ginkgo · Sixty-First Edition," its edges covered in cat fur. Silver's.
"The propulsion core can be removed." She spread the blueprints beside the sea chart and pointed at the engine-compartment diagram. "But the base is welded to the keel, and sixty years of rust have eaten through the seams. If we force it apart..."
"The core casing will shatter," Su Li finished.
"Mm."
Su Li rose and walked to