Mira reached the upper junction before the last supply volunteer understood that she meant him to leave the crates.
“They’re dressings,” he said. “You told us to bring them.”
“I know what I told you. The patients have their attendants. Take the open route.”
He looked toward the boxes, then the narrow ledge along which the others were already moving. Mira knew the calculation. Dressings would be needed after the breach. A promise to save people became less convincing when the people had to arrive at a shelter without supplies. She had made that argument herself, calmly, before the lower intake shook and the neat times on her plan stopped fitting the people who had to live inside them.
She took a single bag from the open crate, gave it to him and pushed the lid closed.
“What fits without slowing you. That’s all.”
The junction floor held her prepared mark. Its little points lay beneath the dust beside the service rail, exactly where she had set them before going to the controls. She could still return here if the dam access failed behind her. From here, an ordinary stair and the cleared ledge led toward the corridor. It was the one route she had checked for herself before asking anybody else to move.
