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heat and death stench swaddle them like a blanket. They might as well be in the slaughter grounds of Khlong Toey. Hock Seng fights the urge to gag.

    A shout rises from the union butchers. They've cut open the megodont's belly. Intestines gush out. Offal gatherers—the Dung Lord's people, all—wade into the mass and begin shoveling it into handcarts, a lucky source of calories. With such a clean source, the offal will likely go to feed the pigs of the Dung Lord's perimeter farms, or stock the yellow card food lines feeding the Malayan Chinese refugees who live in the sweltering old Expansion towers under the Dung Lord's protection. Whatever pigs and yellow cards won't eat will be dumped into the methane composters of the city along with the daily fruit rind and dung collections, to bake steadily into compost and gas and eventually light the city streets with the green glow of approved-burn methane.

    Hock Seng tugs at a lucky mole, thoughtful. A good monopoly, that. The Dung Lord's influence touches so many parts of the city, it's a wonder that he hasn't been made Prime Minister. Certainly, if he wanted it, the godfather of godfathers, the greatest jao por to ever influence the Kingdom could have anything he wanted.

    But will he want what I have to offer? Hock Seng wonders. Will he appreciate a good business opportunity?

    Mai's voice finally filters up from underneath, interrupting his ruminations. "It's cracked!" she shouts. A moment later she claws her way out of the hole, dripping sweat and covered with dust. Nu and Pom and the rest release their hemp ropes. The spindle crashes back into its cradle and the floor shakes.

    Mai glances behind her at the noise. Hock Seng thinks he catches a glimpse of fear, the realization that the spindle could have truly crushed her. The look is gone as quickly as it came. A resilient child.

    "Yes?" Hock Seng asks. "Go on? Is it the core that has split?"

    "Yes, Khun, I can slide my hand into the crack this far." She shows him, touching her hand nearly at her wrist. "And another on the far side, just the same."

    "Tamade," Hock Seng curses. He's not surprised, but still. "And the chain drive?"

    She shakes her head. "The links I could see were bent."

    He nods. "Get Lin and Lek and Chuan—"

    "Chuan is dead." She waves toward the smears where the megodont trampled two workers.

    Hock Seng grimaces. "Yes of course." Along with Noi and Kapiphon and unfortunate Banyat the QA man who will never now hear Mr. Anderson's irritation that he allowed line contamination in the algae baths. Another expense. A thousand baht to the dead workers' families and two thousand for Banyat. He grimaces again. "Find someone else then, someone small from the cleaning gang like you. You will be going underground. Pom and Nu and Kukrit, get the spindle out. All the way out. We will need to inspect the main drive system, link by link. We cannot even consider starting again until it has been checked."

    "What's the rush?" Pom laughs. "It will be a long time before we run again. The farang will have to pay the union bags and bags of opium before they're willing to come back. Not after he gunned down Hapreet."

    "When they do return, we won't have Number Four Spindle," Hock Seng snaps. "It will take time to win an approval from the crown to cut another tree of this diameter, and then to float the log down from the North—assuming the monsoon comes at all this year—and all that time we will be running under constrained power. Think about that. Some of you will not be working at all." He nods at the spindle. "The ones who work hardest will be the ones who stay."

    Pom smiles apologetically, hiding his anger, and wais . "Khun , I was loose with my words. I meant no offense."

    "Good then." Hock Seng nods and turns away. He keeps his face sour, but privately, he agrees. It will take opium and bribes and a renegotiation of their power contract before the megodonts once again make their shuffling revolutions around