The captain counted the last inner engineer by the shelter doorway, not by the sound of his name over a failing line.
He was the man who had walked from the pressure board with blood running under a hurried dressing. He had crossed the turn, accepted a hand at the threshold, and reached the workroom where Tessa’s supplies were waiting. The captain put a mark beside his companion’s receipt. Only then did she authorize the final withdrawal from the approach.
The outer hostage and maintenance group had its own completed departure log. That earlier group was not waiting invisibly behind this one. The captain asked the clerk to retain both lists with their different headings, along with the building roster whose unlocated names still had no current positions. A collapse did not excuse the coalition from remembering the difference between someone received and someone merely hoped to be elsewhere.
Tessa moved between the engineer on the frame and the worker pulled through the inspection hatch. The first had pain she could localize and an injured leg that needed a proper examination. The second’s breathing sounded easier when he sat upright, but she would not accept his repeated assurance that he had only scraped his face. She asked a local healer to remain with him while she checked the head wound of the walking engineer.
