Chapter 164 The Inspector

Risa had found something that could be curtains.

It was pale gray, slightly uneven, and had once been intended to divide a storage compartment in one of the new pods. Dot had checked that it wasn't part of anything keeping the pod safe before letting us take it.

Risa held it up to the morning light.

“Well?”

Sera considered it from the bench.

“It needs washing.”

“Everything needs washing. I'm asking about curtains.”

“I like it,” Luna said.

I reached for one corner.

“I could make the weave—”

“No,” all three said.

I let go.

Risa smiled at me over the cloth.

“We know what it is. We chose it anyway.”

It was Day 464. Sera's treatment was done. The morning had been kind enough that we were arguing about something with no immediate consequence.

Then Dot called from the signal table.

“Aircraft.”

I heard it a few moments later.

Not the low movement of my skiff. An engine, high and distant, with a weight behind the sound that made several of the third-wave children look up before anybody told them to.

Luna was already standing.

“Where?”

“Southwest. Descending. A local transmission is repeating on the standard landing frequency.”

“Play it.”

Dot did.

The voice was a woman's, clear enough to understand beneath the crackle.

“Forward Base One, this is Command survey shuttle Three. Major Tess Ruan aboard. Request landing location and current conditions. Forward Base One, acknowledge.”

For a moment, nobody answered.

It had been so long since a voice from outside our camp had arrived with enough time to expect a reply.

Then Nessa asked whether they were taking us home.

I looked at Luna.

Her face had changed.

Not into fear exactly.

Into the face she wore when being a Windsor became something somebody else might use.

“We don't know why they're here yet,” she told Nessa.

Then she looked at Dot.

“Can we answer directly?”

“The local channel is open. This does not restore the Earth link.”

Luna nodded once.

“This is Scarecrow. We have injured people and children in the upper camp. Do not approach the canyon floor. Hold southwest while we mark a landing place.”

The answer came after a short pause.

“Understood, Scarecrow. Holding.”

Luna turned to us.

“Open ground. Beyond the field. Keep the downwash away from the shelters.”

I went with her to look.

Risa followed. Sera stayed at the bench, the unfinished curtains across her knees.

Before I got too far away, she caught my eye.

Not a plea to stay.

A reminder that she was still part of the day.

I nodded to her, and she nodded back.

We chose a flat place beyond the nearest stretch of wheat.

I cleared the loose stones I could see. Corr and Holt marked the approach with bright cloth. Nobody ran beneath the sound looking for someone they recognized.

Wren kept the children behind the upper path.

Toby stayed beside the medical shelter. Anja went to help him move a loose screen where the wind wouldn't take it.

The shuttle came down slowly.

Gray hull. Scorching beneath the rear section. Ordinary edges around places my sight couldn't read, familiar enough to make the back of my neck tighten.

I didn't try to look through them.

I watched the landing feet instead.

When the engines settled, the field bent away from the last breath of the wash and rose again.

The hatch opened.

Major Tess Ruan stepped out carrying a case and a slate.

She was older than us. Dark hair cut close at the jaw, a pale line above one eyebrow, boots with actual matching soles.

There was a sidearm on her belt.

She left it there.

Behind her, someone in the cockpit lifted a hand and remained with the controls.

Ruan looked at Luna first.

“Windsor?”

“Luna.”

A small pause.

Then the major looked at me.

“Dask.”

“Lucas.”

Risa stood close enough beside me that our sleeves touched.

The major took that in too, although she didn't ask for a third surname.

“I'm here to assess the base,” she said. “Living conditions, personnel, medical needs, and processing capacity.”

Luna looked at the case.

“Did you bring medical supplies?”

“Yes.”

“Then we'll start there.”

We checked what was in the case before calling it medicine.

Toby read the labels. Dot recorded them. Clean dressings, sealed instruments, ordinary supplies we knew how to use. Nothing that pretended to be Sera's treatment. Nothing with Mother's name on it.

I had looked anyway.

Ruan watched me looking.

“There's no personal shipment in that case.”

“Do you have messages?”

“No family messages. I can carry written requests back to the station.”

“To Earth?”

“To the station,” she repeated. “I won't promise a route I don't control.”

I disliked the answer.

I trusted it more than I would have trusted yes.

Toby set the accepted supplies beside the things we already had.

Then he asked whether her inspection could wait until Merrin had finished drinking.

Ruan looked past him at the two new beds.

“Yes,” she said.

She saw the children next.

Not lined up.

Nell was helping Safi with a folded blanket. Kellan and Tom were near the cooking shelf. Dena had a bowl in her hands and wasn't eating from it anymore.

Luna gave the number.

“Fourteen recovered from fourteen tracks we observed. We don't know whether we saw every launch.”

Ruan looked down at her slate.

“They were assigned to established receiving sites.”

“Then somebody should have told the receiving sites,” Risa said.

Her voice was level.

The major looked at her.

Risa held the look.

“No notice,” she said. “No people at the landing places. Several came down injured. Some survived because the creatures they were warned about gave them water.”

Ruan's thumb stopped on the slate.

“What creatures?”

“The Teeming.”

The major looked toward the canyon.

Luna stepped a little to the side, drawing her attention back.

“We'll explain. First, do you have the complete passenger manifest?”

“An assignment summary.”

“Does it include every name launched?”

“I'll have to check that against the station record.”

“Then that's our first request.”

Ruan wrote it down.

I watched her make the note.

Ink on a screen. Not an answer yet.

Still something we hadn't had yesterday.

Sera met us outside the shelter.

She'd put the curtains away.

I noticed that before I noticed she'd fastened her jacket.

Ruan looked at her, then at Liam, who had come over from the water jars.

“The Calders.”

Liam's expression closed.

Sera said, “Seraphina.”

Ruan nodded.

“Your forge is in the production report.”

“It should also be in the report about keeping people warm.”

“I'd like to see it.”

“You can. I'm not working it today.”

The major looked at the blanket folded on the bench.

I felt myself move closer before I'd decided whether that helped.

Sera put a hand against my wrist.

“I've been ill,” she said. “I'm recovering. I can show you the work without demonstrating it.”

Ruan glanced at Toby.

He waited for Sera to look at him before speaking.

“She needs the rest.”

“Understood,” Ruan said.

Sera's fingers loosened on my wrist.

She had answered for herself.

I'd managed not to get in the way.

The tour took longer than the major expected.

There was more Scarecrow than her report seemed to contain.

The tower made her stop on the path.

Four hundred and eight meters of it above the canyon, even with the lower spaces still subject to the cautions we'd learned after the collapse.

She looked from it to the temporary shelters along the high ground.

“You built that and you're living here?”

“The rock underneath changed,” I said. “A tall building isn't a promise about the ground.”

She looked at me sharply, then back at the tower.

Luna showed her the marked places. Where we went. Where we didn't. The routes that had been checked and the ones still waiting.

No pretending we had a perfect base because somebody with a slate had arrived.

Ruan asked about the supports.

I explained the ones I'd made.

She asked about the rest.

I said I didn't know yet.

She wrote that down too.

At the forge, Sera sat on the stool while Liam brought out finished pieces.

A bracket. A repaired fitting. A small part from the water channel.

Ruan turned them over carefully.

“Batch time?”

“Depends what we're making,” Sera said.

“Average throughput?”

“Depends whether we need brackets or someone has broken a pot.”

Liam gave me a sidelong look.

I didn't smile.

The major set the fitting down.

“I need figures I can use.”

“So do we,” Sera said. “If you ask how long that fitting took, I can tell you. If you ask how much work I can do while recovering, the answer is less than you want.”

Ruan looked at her for a moment.

Then changed the question.

“How long did this fitting take?”

Sera told her.

That was a conversation we could have.

Risa found my hand as we left the forge.

I hadn't realized how tightly I'd been holding it against my leg until she worked her fingers between mine.

“You're allowed to breathe,” she murmured.

“I am breathing.”

“Badly.”

The major was ahead with Luna. Liam had stayed with Sera to carry the stool back when she was ready.

I looked over my shoulder.

Sera saw us and lifted two fingers from her lap.

I lifted our joined hands in return.

Risa smiled.

For a moment, Command was a woman walking down a path, and I was still myself.

I needed that more than I'd expected.

The guide was at the water trough.

It had come up while we were in the forge. Teo stood on the near side, holding a vessel, and one of Dot's hands waited beside the lamp we'd left for the work.

Ruan stopped.

Her right hand moved toward her belt.

Luna said, “Leave it.”

Quietly.

Ruan went still.

The guide turned toward us.

I felt Risa's fingers tighten around mine, then loosen as she made room to move if she needed to.

Teo lowered the vessel.

Nobody rushed.

Ruan's hand came away from the weapon.

“What is happening?” she asked.

“We share the water,” Luna said.

The guide raised a limb across the narrow approach.

Stop.

We stopped.

A smaller shape moved beneath the far lip of the trough. Another Teeming lifted it clear and carried it away from the wet stone.

Only then did the guide lower its limb.

Teo went back to the vessel.

The major stared.

“You've established control?” she asked.

“No,” I said.

“Conditioning?”

“No.”

Luna looked at me, then let me go on.

“We've learned some things we can do without hurting each other. Where to stand. When to stop. How to keep the water running to both places.”

“Both places?”

“Our field. The pools below.”

“There's a settlement under the base?”

“There are living things under the base,” Risa said. “They were here before the base.”

The guide touched the rim of the channel.

Teo checked the mark beside it, then set his vessel down where it could be seen.

Ruan watched the exchange.

“Can I go down?”

“Not today,” Luna said. “We don't take visitors into their space without working out whether they're welcome.”

The major looked as though she had never had that answer on an inspection.

She didn't reach for the weapon again.

We ate at the same table.

That was Luna's decision, and when Ruan asked for a separate briefing place, Luna said we could talk after lunch.

Food first.

People sat where there was room.

Holt introduced himself without getting up, then shifted his cup so the major could put down her bowl. Toby was called away briefly and came back to find Wren had saved his place.

Anja asked Liam to pass something. He did, remembered he was holding another bowl, and nearly put that down in the food.

Sera laughed.

Ruan looked around the table.

I wondered which report contained any of this.

Then Sera's foot touched mine beneath the bench.

I looked at her.

She gave me a small smile and went on eating.

I stopped watching the inspector long enough to finish my own meal.

Afterward, Ruan asked to speak with me alone.

The old part of me stood up before I had thought about the request.

A slate. A uniform. Dask, come here.

I remembered Crane's room and a man writing while I tried to discover which answers would cost somebody else something.

Then I looked at the three women beside me.

Luna's face was composed.

Risa's wasn't.

Sera waited.

“What about?” I asked.

“Your processing capacity.”

“Then Luna needs to hear it. Sera understands the forge work. Risa knows what we can actually carry and where.”

“I also have questions about your health.”

“Ask me which ones.”

Ruan regarded me for a few seconds.

Then she put her slate on the table.

“All right.”

I sat down again.

Risa's knee touched mine.

Neither of us moved it away.

The questions were precise.

How much material could I change at once? How much could I refine in a day? Did distance affect the work? Could I operate from an image? Could I make the same thing again without a sample?

Some answers were simple.

“No,” I said when she asked about the screen.

She glanced at Dot.

“But your reconnaissance—”

“Shows me where to go. It doesn't give me my sight through a camera.”

She amended something.

The other answers took longer.

A day spent making one ordinary material wasn't the same as a day spent understanding an unfamiliar structure. A mass I could see wasn't necessarily a mass I understood. Being able to do something once didn't mean I could do it until the next sunrise.

Sera pointed to the fitting on the table.

“He made that quickly because we'd already worked out what it needed to be. The trying took longer.”

Ruan looked down at the thing again.

“Separate development time from production time.”

“Separate them on the page,” Sera said. “Don't forget both happened to the same person.”

The major asked for a demonstration.

I chose a broken ordinary bracket from the scrap tray.

Small enough that showing her wouldn't become the rest of my day. Familiar enough that there was nothing to prove by guessing.

I laid it where everyone could see.

Changed the damaged edge. Made the hole round again. Set it down.

Ruan didn't speak.

Then she picked it up.

Looked through the hole. Ran a finger along the smooth edge where the break had been.

“Again,” she said.

Luna leaned forward.

“What would a second time establish?”

Ruan looked at her.

The question stayed on the table between them.

After a moment, she put the bracket down.

“Nothing necessary.”

I hadn't noticed that I'd been preparing to do it until I stopped.

She had requirements on the slate.

Not all of them visible at once, but enough when she turned it toward us.

Refined elements. Masses. Collection intervals. A place to enter a projected output beside each line.

“These materials are required for dome maintenance,” she said. “Atmospheric systems, structural repair, filtration.”

I looked at the list.

Mother lived beneath an atmospheric system.

Genny and Garnet drank water somebody filtered.

The major didn't have to say their names for me to hear them.

“How do we know where it goes?” Risa asked.

Ruan's eyes moved to her.

“Shipments pass through station logistics.”

“And afterward?”

“I don't have distribution authority.”

“That isn't what she asked,” Sera said.

The major looked down at the slate again.

“I can request routing documentation.”

Luna drew it closer without entering a number.

“Then request it. Along with the complete launch manifest and a way to send the families their children's names.”

There was a long silence.

Outside, somebody dropped a bowl and cursed softly.

Normal sounds. The sort of sounds you could forget belonged in the room when a uniform sat down.

Ruan looked toward the doorway.

“I didn't authorize those launches.”

“I didn't say you did,” Luna answered.

“I wasn't told they had no reception.”

“Now you have been.”

The major nodded once.

Then she closed the production page.

“I'll give you a copy of the requirements. You can supply a capacity assessment after reviewing them.”

“An assessment,” Luna said. “Not an agreement to quotas.”

Ruan met her eyes.

“An assessment.”

Dot recorded the distinction.

I was glad she did.

Ruan stayed while Wren prepared the names.

Fourteen third-wave survivors. Their own words where they wanted to add them. A request for confirmation that every family would be told the truth.

The first-wave survivors could send names too. Ossa asked whether somebody might still be waiting to hear hers.

Nobody promised her they were.

Nobody told her not to write it.

Ruan accepted the packet and let Dot record what she'd taken.

Before returning to the shuttle, she stopped beside the high path and looked back at the tower.

Then at the shelters.

Then at the water running toward the field.

“This isn't what the file described,” she said.

“No,” I answered.

She looked at the little repaired bracket still in her hand.

I hadn't noticed she'd kept it.

“May I take this?”

“Yes.”

That, at least, was something she'd asked for.

The shuttle lifted before dusk.

We watched until the engine became a distant sound and then none at all.

Luna remained standing after everyone else began to move.

I went to her.

For a moment, she kept looking at the sky.

Then she said, “I wanted to say yes when she called me Windsor.”

“You did answer.”

“I mean yes to all of it. Stand straight. Know the figures. Make a good report.”

I took her hand.

“You made a good report.”

“Not the one she came for.”

“The one we needed.”

Luna turned toward me at last.

I kissed her, there beside the landing markers, with the wind lifting the edge of her jacket.

When she leaned against me, I held her until she was ready to step back.

Risa waited on the path home.

She reached for my other hand without speaking.

The three of us walked toward the shelters together.

I told them about standing up before I'd decided to go with Ruan.

Risa rubbed her thumb against my fingers.

“I saw.”

“I thought I'd stopped doing that.”

“You stopped today,” Luna said.

“After I'd started.”

“Yes.”

She said it without qualification, as though stopping still counted if it hadn't happened at the first possible instant.

I tried to believe her.

Sera had the gray cloth out again.

She was sitting where the last light caught it, holding one edge while Liam shook the dust from the other.

He saw us coming, handed me his corner, and went to find Anja before Sera could give him another job.

The four of us stood around the cloth.

It wasn't particularly beautiful.

It looked like something rescued from a storage compartment.

“I still like it,” Risa said.

“So do I,” Luna answered.

Sera looked at me.

“Well?”

“I like it.”

“As it is?”

I looked at the uneven weave. At her hand holding one edge and Risa's closing over another. At Luna, still tired, still here.

“As it is.”

While Luna helped Sera fold the cloth, Risa drew me aside.

“Are you all right?”

“Better now.”

“I was frightened when she reached for the gun.”

I looked at her.

She had sounded so steady beside the trough that I'd mistaken it for how she'd felt.

“So was I.”

“I kept thinking about that little one under the edge. She hadn't even seen it.”

I put my arms around her.

Risa held me tightly for a moment, then lifted her face.

The kiss was quiet. Unhurried.

When we went back, she kept her hand in mine. I didn't let go to reach for the measuring cord. Luna passed it to my other hand.

We measured it after supper.

Not for a room I'd already built while nobody was looking.

For one we could choose together.

Sera drew a window on the back of a page that wasn't medical notes. Risa wanted it wide enough to sit beside. Luna asked for the door to open away from the wind.

I wrote down all three things.

Then Sera pulled my hand away from the paper and kissed me.

“What was that for?”

“Nothing you've done.”

I looked at her.

She smiled.

“Get used to it.”

Risa laughed, and Luna leaned against my shoulder to see the drawing.

On the other side of camp, Dot held a copy of Command's requirements.

Here, beneath my hand, we had a window, a door, and something we wanted that nobody had ordered us to make.

We kept drawing until the light went.

Day 464. The inspector.

Major Tess Ruan. Local shuttle channel. Earth link still closed.

Medical supplies accepted after checking. No family messages. Took names and written requests. Complete launch manifest requested. Routing information requested.

Saw the children. Saw the tower and the temporary camp. Saw the guide wait while the young one was moved. No weapons used. No visit below.

Showed one ordinary repair. Once was enough.

Production requirements copied. Assessment requested. No quotas agreed.

Luna asked the question. Sera explained the work. Risa asked where the shipments went.

I sat down again.

Curtains still gray. Still uneven. Still ours to choose.

Window wide enough to sit beside. Door out of the wind.