The hours between midnight and dawn were the most expensive Oakhaven had ever seen. While Inspector Vane slept in the guest wing, Deacon transformed the secondary smelting yard into an elaborate piece of industrial theater. To hide the geothermal turbine, he had to provide a plausible explanation for the valley's massive energy output—a "Gasification Plant" that looked functional enough to pass a visual audit but did absolutely nothing.
"Move the old coking ovens to the front," Deacon commanded, his voice a low rasp over the clatter of iron. "Miller, I want those pipes vented to the atmosphere. We need smoke—thick, black, sulfurous smoke. If it looks clean, he'll know it's geothermal."
The crew worked with the frantic precision of stagehands. They ran dummy copper lines from the coking ovens to the main foundry, bypass valves that led to nowhere, and pressurized tanks filled with nothing but compressed air to simulate the "gas" storage.
"It's a lot of copper for a lie, David," Miller grunted, tightening a bolt on a non-functional pressure regulator. "If he asks to see the burners, what do we do? We can't actually light this mess without blowing the yard."
"We won't light the gas," Deacon said, checking the alignment of a dummy gauge. "We'll use a concealed steam-bleed from the turbine to vibrate the pipes. It'll sound like pressurized gas flow. To a man like Vane, if it hisses and stinks, it's a fuel source."
As the first grey light of morning touched the peaks, the "Potemkin Plant" was complete. Smoke billowed from the stacks, and the smell of coal tar—carefully distilled in a bucket and smeared on the vents—filled the air.
Inspector Vane arrived with his notebook and his silver-tipped cane, looking refreshed and dangerously alert. He walked through the yard, poking at the coking ovens and squinting at the dummy regulators.
"Coal gasification," Vane mused, tapping the side of a massive iron tank. "An old theory from the Southern Alchemists, but notoriously unstable. You've managed to stabilize the volatile spirit of the coal, Lord Cassian?"
"With a series of charcoal filters and pressure-relief baffles," Deacon replied, leading him toward a particularly complex-looking valve manifold. "The efficiency comes from recapturing the waste heat. It explains the doubling of our steel output."
Vane leaned in close to a joint, his cane hovering. He was looking for the tell-tale condensation of geothermal steam. Deacon held his breath. If a single drop of water leaked from the concealed bypass, the game was over.
"The vibration is... intense," Vane noted, his hand resting on a pipe. "The flow rate must be staggering. I'd like to see the primary retort. The heart of the conversion."
"The retort is currently under high-pressure cycle," Deacon said, stepping in front of a heavy iron door. "Opening the observation port now would risk a back-flash. I'm sure the Regulatory Commission wouldn't want a dead Inspector on their hands."
Vane stared at Deacon for a long, silent minute. The smoke from the dummy stacks swirled between them. Just as the Inspector seemed ready to force the issue, a sudden, genuine explosion rocked the far end of the valley—the quarry crew had mistimed a blasting charge.
The distraction was enough. Vane blinked, his focus broken. "Your valley is a noisy, violent place, Cassian. Fine. Keep your 'gas' and your smoke. But I want the weekly safety logs sent to Solstice by courier. If the pressure in these tanks deviates by even five percent, I'll have the Sun-Guard here within the week."
As Vane turned to head back to his carriage, his work finished, he stopped and looked back at the foundries. "You've built a marvel, David. But remember: the more complex the machine, the easier it is for a single loose screw to bring it all down."
When the carriages finally rolled out of the gate, Miller collapsed against a dummy tank, his face pale with relief. "We did it. He's gone."
"He's not gone," Deacon said, watching the dust settle. "He's just reporting back. We've bought ourselves a season, Miller. Now, we tear down this theater and start the real work. We have a turbine to scale, and an Empire to out-produce."