"Nnno. We memorize what different kinds of rock look like and how strong they are under compression and tension and shearing, and how heavy they are and stuff. The certification exam is watching a team of werewolves make a big stupid complicated structure with every possible problem and telling them how to fix it, in the right order...but no one ever says, first identify the rocks and then figure out how close to breaking they are and then decide if it's a problem. It's supposed to be obvious.

We practice by imagining different rocks in different situations, with flashcards to make sure we're doing it right. Not real rocks, and not just because that would be a huge waste of time for the wolves. I think the idea is that the training is exhausting, but once we're done, we can stroll along chatting with the foreman and it just works? If there was a procedure to follow, well, people might not follow it, but even if people were perfect, it would be tiring. Mentally. Ten hours of mentally-tiring safety-critical work in a mine is asking for trouble. If it's obvious, it's not tiring.

I don't thinnnk any of that's a Lei secret."

"Mm. I still think there might be a benefit from a very simple procedure; perhaps, on the very first chirp, check if this is a normal job or not. But for now, I'm only going to write, 'the vampire's training was insufficient'. And also, in the contributing factors, 'the vampire's prior experience may have led to complacency' - that's a technical term, not a moral judgement - 'because of the recent shift in the common work for vampires in northern Lei due to the Pes orogeny'. And that's still not the true root cause, but going deeper than that is for Lei to do."

"We should all take a quiet moment to think about how this is different from what we've done before," says Stepan.

"Emphasizing 'a quiet moment'. Don't get distracted second-guessing everything while you do it.

My last issue is why were we doing this dangerous thing at all. I have thoughts, but want someone else who wasn't involved in making the decision to handle this part of the investigation. I suggest starting by interviewing me and Stepan in private, probably some other people too.

To recap: we don't know why the ice collapsed. The evacuation went very smoothly. The shouts of the miners alerted the shrine-builders in time to run. We're going to take a quiet moment to think about how this is a new place deeper in the drydark than anyone has ever been. Be ready for someone to talk to you in private.

Now, looking forward, we have a bunch of ice, in chunks on the ground where we can play with them. We're still on two 15-hour shifts. I want every catfolk either studying the ice themself or helping someone study it. I know Merta has a bunch of ideas about building a tube out of ice."

"...Or something else similarly important. Now is a good time to discuss ideas."

- he looks over Audron's sketches and purrs -

"You're intending this as a way to scout ahead? No goatseer, just get close up and look ourselves? If you take this to a higher part of the ice mountain and leave the catfolk there, could you bring the contraption back yourself? Could you take an extra person, at least a vampire or a gnomunk, or a decently sized cursor? Can we test this without the mini-turbine - just a kite and you and a catfolk to keep you warm? For that matter, I'm not sure it needs the mini-turbine at all, at least just to get someone up the mountain, not a longer scouting trip..."

"So the thing is for all the Freedom to Grow lets me try things, things are expensive, none of this has ever been physical examples except a tiny wood and paper glider this wide," about a foot and a half, "Which I got a mouseling called Lenora to test the wing warping with a cursor with. I bought a lot of wood and cord and paper and went through several things that didn't work at all. I didn't think to bring it, delicate and all. I brought it up high with the cursor and cords for controls to scale and just let it go and she flew it- Lost control of it a lot at first, both mistakes in operation and in design. We did that for a couple of months off and on. There's a- It just spins and crashes if you get too slow. You can glide a good while, yes... There's probably arrangements that can bring more weight and people along. I don't want to overstate my confidence, I'm thinking a lot more about safety after yesterday."

"Hrm. Good. So there's two purposes - scouting and transportation - and two places you could work on it - Kef, or in the chartreuse. Not here, it's too cold and remote. You can disassemble the finished thing and bring it here through the tube, right?

I don't know how important scouting will be. I also don't know how important transportation will be, but hopefully it will become clear after experimenting with the ice.

...I think the most useful scouting job this could do is gathering information other than just what the ground looks like. Such as by bringing a mouseling with a sack of cursors who tosses one down each klick, or by bringing a vampire and skimming close to the ground. And for transportation obviously passenger capacity is vital. Either way, it has to be big.

I really want an aasimar. Then we'd have transportation up the mountain and scouting with the goatseer. You would focus on long trips, which I imagine the turbine will be necessary for.

In any case, most of the werewolves are going home soon, which will drastically reduce our food needs. Just a barge through the tube each cycle or so, and we'll keep it open for equartiers the rest of the time. So it would be no problem, logistically, for you to stay in Kef to work on this idea.

But the wind is far weaker in Kef. 

If it was just up to me, I'd want to send you to Nitatlel to try some designs in the wind, in a comfortable temperature. Someone in Kef could work on the turbine, or they could go to Nitatlel with you.

Alas, politics. Will the Freedom Democracy be okay with you temporarily leaving the expedition? If that's what you want?"

"Anything I make would be relatively easy to disassemble and rebuild. And that's a tricky question. They'll take me off of the expedition forever if I leave for even a little bit, I bet, and I do want to be here! I want to see the crash site! Try to figure out how that enormous ship worked! Maybe not if Sota lets more people from Lei and the Freedom Democracy join later? I tried pretty hard to get here in the first place! They're expecting books! First few chapters are ready for equartier-relay, actually. Uh, I'm really willing to take direction on how to depict the last wake, tragedies shouldn't - be made light of. It's mostly been prose about the mood, the landscape, the logistics and innovations, so far... Suppose I could send a message to Sixth Elector Lenisaf by kitsune and ask about a side project in Nitatlel or Kef."

"It's not my call to whether invite more people, but I'll mention it.

Did you hear much of the discussion? I think that sort of failure analysis is interesting but not sensational, if you keep it separate from the personal stories. And keep the personal stories just about what people directly witnessed; don't add a bunch about feelings and definitely don't make anything up. 

I'm planning to talk to a magistrate about how to properly do a failure analysis, eventually, and I'll invite you to that, so you can hear all about how my imitation compares to the real thing - If you're interested. I imagine the 'wisdom of the elves' isn't popular reading in the Freedom Democracy."

"A failure analysis is absolutely not the kind of thing my readers will like but it sounds useful. I didn't hear much of it. It's, uh, I like it there but I'm finding myself surprisingly sympathetic to other points of view? Trading some freedom for some security is a thing people might want. I think the exchange rate is- You know what. I shouldn't talk politics. It always leads to trouble. Nevermind that. I'll stick to facts and my own personal feelings, nobody else's, about the collapse."

He'll go find the kitsune and see if she wants to take an interview for his book some time and also he has a message for the queue. It's short; the Fifth Elector who referred him to the Sixth saw his designs and mini-glider for at least five minutes and seemed interested, so he doesn't have to explain the whole thing beyond 'a potentially useful innovation for transport or scouting' and the idea for a Nitatlel or Kef side-project proposed by Jake Fuzzer of Kef. (He does show off his sketches again though!)

"Yep, I stay out of politics." Meikalani draws a lot of it and she can keep it.

"There's no queue for me! One of the benefits of not being a vital component of the government!"

Nefanie ducks into the kitsune-closet for a minute. 

"Okay, message passed on and stuffed, jammed, rammed, and crammed into all relevant queues.

I didn't witness the accident happen; I was checking up on the path-smoothing teams and no one flagged me until they had written the whole announcement. But I'm always happy to talk!"

"Not necessarily about the accident. Just - the project in general, if you don't mind. Feel free to not answer any or all!"

His questions are: When did she first hear about the aliens? What did she think? When did she hear about the expedition? Is it exciting? What kinds of things does she do for the expedition? What about in her free time? What does she think about Kef, Abilanedi, Jake Fuzzer, various other expedition staff? What's her daily routine like? What does she think the aliens were/are (they might have enough magic to survive the crash! who knows!) like? Does she have anything she wants to say to readers in the FD?

When did she first hear about the aliens? "Do you count seeing the ship before I knew it was aliens? We joked about how fluffy its tail was. The liefling who visits us to collect fur said it was aliens."

What did she think? "I was dubious! Sounds like a prank, you know? See how long Nefanie will believe this story, get the liefling in on it too..."

When did she hear about the expedition? "The liefling came back the next cycle with someone from the government trying to hire a kitsune. I think I got the job because I'm just the right amount of serious. The really serious kitsune were busy directing equartiers and the really fun ones, you can't touch them with your eyes closed."

Is it exciting? "Of course! Well, I'm not excited every minute, but I remind myself about the aliens and that gets me excited again."

What kinds of things does she do for the expedition? "Messages, so far, which means most of the time not actually taking messages, just bouncing though the closets checking. Once the path is ready, I'll monitor the equartiers. We're using an exclusive-path protocol which I think will be a lot more fun than the usual block protocol where you never even hear the equartiers pass by. To signal an emergency stop, I have to leave the closet and put a ribbon across the path while the equartier is charging toward me!"

What about in her free time? "I visit Kef or Archer's Tabard or my friends back home. Or go running in the drydark and see how much farther I can get before I'm too cold and have to leave. I've gotten about a klick or two fel from the bridge but now I think I'll start again from here and go along the edge of the ice mountain."

What does she think about Kef, Abilanedi, Jake Fuzzer, various other expedition staff? "Kef is nice! I don't like being pinned in a big city like Argolake, but Kef is good. I'm trying to get invited into every house. Hi everyone if you're reading this!

I expected not to like 'Foreman Stirling', but Fuzzer is great. I want to give him a sampling of drugs and get him talking about math.

I want to get Abilanedi high too, but not for the same reason. 

Merta scares me. She's so hard, if she breaks it's going to be bad."

What's her daily routine like? "I don't really work a shift. I bounce around every hour or so while I'm awake and take life as it comes."

What does she think the aliens were/are (they might have enough magic to survive the crash! who knows!) like? "Stranger than any guesses I've heard. They're not going to be like some species we have with some small differences. They're going to be, like, wizards with metamorphosis between life stages, one of which is a cloud of goo."

Does she have anything she wants to say to Readers in the FD? "I'm a kitsune who lives on a mountain in the middle of the Storms and eats slowgrowth. My life is already as free as possible. And yet, here I am, trapped in tiny room on the side of a tube a bit over a meter wide, with ten people between me and the nearest kitsune-closet. How did this happen to me? Words. Words are powerful. Words are great! From teng to fel, from south to north, plant an allheart and call peace forth! Smash the shrines! Glory to Lei! You better print this exactly as I said it or I'll sneak over there and piss in your teapot, ha ha just kidding."

"And I should check on your message now..."

"FD said yes! They'll pay for your materials and send one more person, and Lei will also send one more. Nice, I've always wanted to see Nitatlel! We're going to have a great time, Audron."

He writes this all down!! And laughs at parts!!

"That's great news! Maybe we can take you into the sky some time once I have a big version nice and safe. I wonder if you had a closet on board you could come in and out of it? The weight would be noticeable. I guess now we have to do the boring stuff and figure out, like, when I should leave and how. Oh, hey, maybe it'll be ready in time to help once they figure out how to get up on to the ice safely."

Speaking of which, the Frozen City will send an aasimar along with three bodyguards.

"Was that what they were balking at this whole time? Four people they'll do but not three? Ugh. I mean, I don't know what the politics is, but I don't think they ought to be required to match the FD and Lei parties."

Koy also wants to send someone! Since they're in the Allheart Alliance, it's probably just a coincidence that they're announcing this now.

out

The perfectly ordinary chunk of meat that just happens to resemble a catfolk gets: 

- a test-fit in a stone casing

- a tourniquet on both legs

- lungs emptied of blood

- targeted again by the liefling

- scanned by the vampire

in goes the ordinary chunk of meat.

Paro retches. Gnomunks are herbivores.

Larian volunteers to write up part of the failure analysis. She focuses on the decisions being made.

How was it decided to use catfire to melt through the ice? Who decided it? When? How long did they think about it? Did you discuss the idea with others? When other people were told about the idea, were they told, 'this is what we're doing', or 'this is an idea we have, what do you think'? Did anyone ask if this might be dangerous? Did anyone ever flag that it might be unsafe? Did anyone FEEL like it was unsafe, but not say anything? Okay, and what happened after you mentioned feeling unsafe? Was any time spent considering alternate plans?

The questions are kind of accusatory but she does a good utterly neutral Bureaucrat Drone. We're just filling out a form here, everything's fine, just tell me what you remember.

She summarizes and anonymizes answers to a reasonable degree, and builds a timeline, and asks others to double-check her work, and adds the following tentative findings:

• The ice mountain was being treated as if it were familiar terrain. The expedition should be aware that the drydark is a hostile and unknown place, and generally proceed conservatively.
• The ice-melting proposal was considered from a feasibility standard first, and a safety standard second if at all. ('Would this work' rather than 'is this safe'). Expedition planners should make sure to consider the risks of any new plans or actions.
• Safety of the process was not ever specifically and deliberately considered during the initial planning. It was discussed only after the melting had already begin when a member of the team raised concerns. It should have been discussed earlier.
• The decision to proceed was made quickly. It should have been discussed more, even if it might delay the expedition's progress.
• The process was initiated at full speed right away. It should have been tried on a small scale first so any obvious problems could be flagged.
• The decision to proceed was made without consulting very many people. Discussion with more people could have flagged the problems that led to the accident.
• Those asked to contribute were asked in the context of a fully-formed plan, and therefore less primed to think about whether the process was safe and viable. They should have been explicitly asked questions like 'does this seem like a good plan' and 'can you think of anything that could go wrong if we do this' and 'do we have all the magics and skills and tools we need to do this'.
• The writer of this failure analysis addendum is not experienced in failure analysis. It may be missing obvious conclusions or come to erroneous ones. If anyone has literature about safe planning and failure analysis, please send it.

So that's how a professional does it. How on Ansaf did this quiet kappa get to be such a professional? ... Does she want a position on the leadership team.

That sounds like it will result in fewer people ordering her around on average, so sure.

It's Day 7 today. Someone graffitied a pithy joke on the cafeteria wall. Riiiight in a convenient camera blindspot. She's pointedly not looking for whoever did it, and just made sure someone got assigned to clean it off.

It's true, at any rate.

And on the seventh day, Lucy Carver saw the work that everyone else had done, and found it good, and rested.

"Yeah, we drove the rovers pretty hard yesterday," he says in their daily meeting. "But we did find the hospital module! Her thrusters fired just fine and she landed beautifully, just, on the other side of a little mountain from here. We only brought back the crates Dr. Montero told us were most important. The heavy transport will be necessary to get everything."