Rook’s offer named the laboratory before it named the exclusivity.
Juno read about two test benches, a controlled materials store and staff whose paid work would include maintaining the references instead of apologizing for them. There was transport for finished units. There were supply contracts. Her name would appear on the anchor program and on publications describing its development.
She stopped at that paragraph longer than she wanted Kellan to notice.
He noticed anyway and said nothing.
At the funding session, Rook had placed the held-order notice beside a schedule his company could meet if the parties signed promptly. The comparison was accurate in the ways that hurt. His laboratory already possessed instruments the workshop lacked. His inspectors were paid. The approved alloy could arrive before the towns’ amended request completed its vote.
Juno had asked to take the contract away rather than answer in a hall full of people waiting to interpret her expression. Now she sat in a borrowed office with Kellan and a legal adviser assigned by the workshop group. Outside the window, rain dripped from the end of an awning onto a stack of empty transport cages.
“The payment is real?” she asked.
“The proposed payment is specified,” the adviser said. “We would still verify the guarantee and the termination terms. The larger question is what you would be granting.”
