Hekaton the Wright

Hekaton is the foremost engineer of the age and, by common consent, the busiest man in Aurei. The tide-engines that keep the rings, the gearing of the elevators that climb the towers and the mount, the machinery sunk in the piers of the great bridges, and the ribbed frames and lift-engines of the airships are all, in their present form, his work or his improvement of older work.

He keeps a workshop still at the Engine Works, where he may be found most days among the apprentices, sleeves rolled, arguing happily with a problem. It is said of him that he may be argued out of no problem and into any workshop; that he has refused commissions from the Concord and accepted them from children; and that the public galleries above the engine-floor, where citizens may watch the work, were his gift to the city, on the principle that a people who can see how their island runs will keep it the better.