About
Holds the institution of the ground: the flare bell and the count that follows it — every soul under rock, by household, every time, inside a warning nobody has ever beaten. Calls the count household by household in the dark (chapter 10). Denn hears somebody else's version of his own trade and does not remark on it — not one clause, not a glance. Present at the road (chapter 11) and at the lift (chapter 12), where Almon's own count and Kestrel's are reconciled at the ledge head by two people who have never met and do it in four minutes.
How they speak
A warden's: the bell, the warning, the minutes, what is under rock and what is not, whose household signs for whom. Corrects Kestrel's misread flatly, mid-task, assuming they already knew — the pipe run has no rock over it, the count cannot be made there, and nobody's household will sign for a man on it — and the work continues in the same breath.