The Foundry — crystal and precision fabrication hall

What the building looked like from the apron on 20 March and from orbit on every pass: a roof full of vents breathing wet warm air, and the stacks over the bank.

1. FD-VENTS Roof vents — the beards Fr 8–70 published Terminal Black, chapter 11 — 'a roof full of vents, and every vent had a beard of ice on it a metre long, and the whole windward face of the building from the gutter down was white and lumpy'; ch11:163 — 'It's been breathing wet warm air out of those vents since Friday and every bit of it has frozen where it landed'

   ⭐ THE BEARDS. A metre long on 20 March; by the 28th 'The beards of ice on the roof vents had grown and joined' (ch25:235). 'That's not weather. There's no weather. That's out of the building' (ch11:159). One vent is over the canopy at the apron end (ch11:171). Extent over the hall is the drawing's.

2. FD-STACKS The Foundry stacks Fr 8–48 published Terminal Black, chapter 3 — 'The light on the Foundry stacks had gone flat and slightly grey'

   Tall enough to be seen from the ward roofs on Sarah's walk home on the Friday. Placed over the annealing bank; the position is the drawing's (2026-09-21).

The Foundry office. Up a stair from the main floor; the gallery window looks down the hall.

1. FD-GAL Office gallery and shift board Fr 48–70 published Terminal Black, chapter 11 — 'The shift board was in the office gallery, chalk on a painted panel, run down at the bottom where damp had got to it, and it listed the Friday evening shift by surname and initial against a line number'; ch11:203 — 'standing under the gallery window'; ch19:11 — 'a man off the Foundry office called Sekibo'

   ⭐ THE RECORD. Nineteen names. Sarah copies all nineteen onto the back of a light sheet in pencil, standing under the gallery window with her thumb going across the lamp glass every fifteen seconds, in nine minutes, and Choi comes up the stair twice (ch11:203). 'This board is a record and it's chalk and it's the only one there is' (ch11:211). Bhatt put four of the names on it herself (ch25:305). The office: Sekibo worked here nine years (ch25:35); two from the office walked out across the yard to South Thermal at eight on the Friday evening, after the lights (ch09:93). The Foundry repeater went at about 21:40 that night (ch04:99). Frames the drawing's.

The hall. 'a cold hall with a warm floor, and a temperature gradient a person could feel by standing up straight' (Terminal Black, chapter 11).

1. FD-APRON Roller shutter, personnel door and canopy — the apron end Fr 1–8 published Terminal Black, chapter 11 — 'The personnel door on the apron side had a drift against it up to the handle and the drift had set. The roller shutter was the way in. Its bottom edge was free and the track was iced at the top'; ch11:171 — 'Above the shutter there was a canopy over the loading apron, and above the canopy there was a roof vent'

   ⚠ Teague puts the ladder against the shutter frame and goes up with a bar; Sarah holds the foot of it (ch11:169). 'It came off the canopy edge in one piece and then in several' (ch11:177). Forty minutes with bars to get him out, 'stacking what they broke off against the shutter frame' (ch11:179). The shutter opens at about 14:30 (ch11:185); on the 28th it is 'half up and a ladder against its frame' (ch25:323). Outside: 'four hundred metres of open concrete' from the gatehouse, 'a wall for the first sixty metres and nothing for the rest' (ch11:153); the gate and the yard 'where Falzon said' (ch11:151); Bhatt walks two hundred metres of it (ch25:319).

2. FD-BANK Annealing bank — eight furnaces, north wall Fr 8–48 published Terminal Black, chapter 11 — 'a bank of eight annealing furnaces along the north wall with a metre of refractory in the walls of each of them, which had been holding at temperature on Friday afternoon and had been giving that temperature back into a dark building ever since'

   ⭐⭐ THE THING THE STATION SAW. Eight furnaces in forty metres — five metres apiece, the drawing's division. 'Sorensen put a hand near the second one and took it away. "Fifty hours," he said. "Fifty hours and it's still doing that. That's what she has been looking at from up there"' (ch11:191–193). 'A metre of refractory doesn't give it all up in a week. It gives most of it upward and outward, into a hall with the shutter and the vents open … And the rest of it goes down' (ch25:73–77). Depth of the bank (7 m of the beam) is the drawing's.

3. FD-FLOOR Main floor — cranes, conveyor, benches, aisles Fr 8–48 published Terminal Black, chapter 11 — 'the main floor'; ch11:197 — 'There was a mug on a bench with something in the bottom of it that had frozen and split the glaze. There was a hand trolley left across an aisle in a way nobody would leave a hand trolley'; ch25:293 — 'a woman off the cranes'; ch25:173 — 'my brother is a crane fitter'; ch07:5 — 'a conveyor at the Foundry'

   The working floor: cranes, a conveyor (a boy of twelve degloved on it on the Friday, ch07:5), benches, aisles; 'a furnace bank and a machine shop' (ch27:357) — the machine shop is not placed. Crystal here is grown by pulling from a melt — 'I grow crystal for a living' / 'Not without somebody standing over the melt changing it to a schedule' (One Road Out, chapter 10,:165) — and the books never put the pulling gear on a plan. 'They called from the middle of the floor' (ch11:195). The mug and the trolley are unchanged on the 28th (ch25:235–237).

4. FD-STAIRHEAD The numbered door, the stair head and the dead hoist Fr 48–58 fixed spec ruling 2026-09-21 on Terminal Black, chapter 25 — 'There's a stair. It's off the east end of the main floor, behind the second crib room, and there's a goods hoist beside it that hasn't worked in years … It's a plain door in the back wall of a crib room. It's got a number on it and it hasn't got a word'; ch25:55 — 'a stair at the east end'

   ⭐ The stair down and the hoist shaft occupy the north-wall strip immediately east of the bank, behind the crib rooms — which is 'off the east end of the main floor, behind the second crib room' read literally, and puts the stair's foot at the store's east end. The numbered door is in the second crib's north wall. Every foreman 'has spent thirty years telling people not to' go through it (ch25:13). Placement is the drawing's; the door, the stair, the hoist and their relation are published.

5. FD-CRIB1 First crib room Fr 48–53 published Terminal Black, chapter 11 — 'the two crib rooms'; ch25:239 — 'They went east along the main floor to the crib rooms'

   Walked and called on 20 March. Position at the east end of the bank is the drawing's (2026-09-21).

6. FD-CRIB2 Second crib room — and the door in its back wall Fr 53–58 published Terminal Black, chapter 25 — 'It was five metres by four with a table and six chairs and a cupboard and a sink'; ch25:243 — 'The door in the back wall was steel, painted the same colour as the wall, with a number stencilled on it at eye height and no word under the number'

   ⭐⭐ Five metres by four. A table, six chairs, a cupboard, a sink. 'Sarah put her hand on it and it opened' (ch25:247). Walked and called on 20 March; nobody opened the door, because nobody in the party knew what it was. The cupboard fed two people for ten days: 'four litres a day of somebody's jacket water and whatever was in a crib cupboard' (ch25:333).

7. FD-LOCK Locker corridor Fr 58–70 published Terminal Black, chapter 11 — 'There were coats on the hooks in the locker corridor'

   Coats on the hooks. Walked and called. Position the drawing's.

8. FD-FLOOR-E East end of the main floor Fr 48–62 published Terminal Black, chapter 11 — 'They called from the middle of the floor and from the east end and from the top of the stair to the office gallery'

   The east end they called from. Twenty-two steps, a steel door and a metre of concrete away from the five below (ch25:315).

9. FD-STAIR-G Stair to the gallery Fr 62–70 published Terminal Black, chapter 11 — 'the top of the stair to the office gallery'; ch11:203 — 'Choi came up the stair twice'

   Position the drawing's.

10. FD-ANNEX The eight annexes Fr 70–92 published Terminal Black, chapter 11 — 'We haven't been through the annexes, we haven't been through the freight side, we haven't been down anything'; ch25:323 — 'eight annexes and a freight side and a below-ground she had now seen one room of'; One Road Out, chapter 4 — 'Eight annexes nobody's walked'

    ⚠ NEVER WALKED. Eight annexes; 'off the east end' is the drawing's. On 20 March the party had four people, one of them under the canopy ice, fifty minutes of light and the time Ortiz gave them. Still unwalked at the end of the trilogy. What is in them is not on this sheet because it is not in the books.

11. FD-FREIGHT Freight side Fr 92–100 published Terminal Black, chapter 11 — 'we haven't been through the freight side'

    ⚠ Never walked. 'It's got a compressed air house and it's got a chemical store and nobody has been inside it since March' (One Road Out, chapter 19) — neither is placed; the sheet puts them nowhere.

'a metre of hearth refractory and then a metre of concrete and then a room' (Terminal Black, chapter 25). Between the concrete and the room, a void with a tank in it.

1. FD-VOID Ceiling void — jacket-water header tank Fr 8–48 published Terminal Black, chapter 25 — 'a ceiling void with the jacket-water header tank in it'; ch25:271 — 'There's a header tank in that void. It's the jacket water off the bank. It has given us about four litres a day between us off the drain cock, and it is industrial water out of an industrial tank, and it has made both of us extremely unwell twice, and it is the only reason there is anybody down here at all'

   ⭐ THE ONLY REASON THERE IS ANYBODY DOWN HERE AT ALL. The jacket water off the annealing bank, drawn off the drain cock. 'down is a sealed room with a metre of concrete round it and a ceiling void full of water' (ch25:77). The void's height and the tank's size are the drawing's.

⭐ THE ROOM. Under the annealing bank's hearths, end to end. 'That's a bunker … There's nothing else on this settlement built like that except the pit' (Terminal Black, chapter 25). Floor depth is the drawing's: twenty-two risers and a turn is four to five metres.

1. FD-STAIR-D The stair down — twenty-two steps and a turn Fr 48–52 published Terminal Black, chapter 25 — 'The stair went down twenty-two steps and turned'; ch25:55 — 'a stair at the east end'

   From the numbered door in the second crib room down to the store's east end. ⚠ 'Twenty-two steps and a fire door and a metre of concrete' (ch25:315): Meera Bhatt came up it at about six-thirty on the Friday, at ten, and on the Saturday morning, stood on the main floor and called, heard 'the shutter going and something coming off the roof', and got nothing; then stopped, 'because I was losing the room every time I opened that door' (ch25:305–309). The party of 20 March called from the same floor and she did not hear them.

2. FD-HOIST Goods hoist (dead) Fr 52–55 published Terminal Black, chapter 25 — 'a goods hoist beside it that hasn't worked in years'; ch25:55 — 'a dead goods hoist'

   Beside the stair. Has not worked in years.

3. FD-PATT Pattern store Fr 14–48 published Terminal Black, chapter 25 — 'a concrete room forty metres long with pattern crates stacked down both walls'; ch25:55 — 'The pattern store ran the length of the annealing bank and about half its width'; ch25:9 — 'Below ground, a metre of hearth over the top of it end to end … It is the warmest place in that building and it has been for forty years'

   ⭐⭐ Forty metres of concrete room with pattern crates down both walls — this compartment and the far end together. 'When the apron's bad and there's nothing to do you go down there and sit on a pattern crate and drink somebody's tea' (ch25:13). 'That room is not warm … a few degrees above nothing' (ch25:81). A hand lamp on the floor in the middle, 'turned down as far as a hand lamp goes' (ch25:257). Five bed places of pattern-shop felt along the wall under the ceiling void (ch25:259). Meera Bhatt, fifty-one, kept this store for nineteen years (ch25:265) and 'had been keeping the days on a pattern crate with a nail' (ch25:295). Width is derived: half the bank's 7 m.

4. FD-FAR The far end — behind the fire door Fr 8–14 published Terminal Black, chapter 25 — 'They're in the far end. Past the crates. We put them there and we shut the fire door on it and neither of us has been down that end since the eighth day, and I want somebody who isn't me to tell me that was all right'

   ⚠ SPOILER within Terminal Black. West end: the stair is at the east end (ch25:55) and this is past the crates from it — ruled 2026-09-21. Three people are here: a man of sixty-one from the annealing floor, a woman off the cranes, a boy of nineteen three weeks in the job (ch25:293). The fire door was shut on the eighth day. 'Nobody went back for the three in the far end and nobody proposed it' (ch25:321). The forty-metre room has 'one door' in (ch25:55); this fire door is inside it.