The smaller guild leader held her permit until the paper began to bend in the middle. She flattened it against her knee before standing again. Across the council chamber, Rook’s draft had reached its second reading. The rescued street and the torn depot appeared in every argument, sometimes within the same breath.
“My missing team isn’t an example,” she said. “They’re people whose return window has already passed.”
The chair asked her to state the specific defect in the measure. She looked at the permit as though the defect should have been obvious from the dirt on it.
“I apply through the same authority that can deny me. If I’m denied, where is the deadline for someone else to hear why?”
Rook offered to have emergency command review the permit immediately. The offer was useful. Eli could see that in the woman’s face and in the faces of her guild members behind her. They had exhausted ordinary requests. A review that might produce a crew was not an abstract temptation.
“Review under which rules?” she asked.
“Under the rules governing dangerous access.”
“The rules you are asking us to pass.”
