The crew had begun clearing the unfinished assembly when the borrowed case arrived.
Juno saw the company mark before she saw Eli. For a moment relief made the parts inside seem already installed. Then the operator carrying the inventory stopped at the work boundary and asked for the settlement engineer.
The case remained closed until both records were on the table.
Eli gave the loan conditions before anyone reached for a tool. Company ownership. Specified uses. Its operators in control of deployment and unused stock. Recall at the agreed threshold or if relevant information was withheld. The material was enough for the remaining tunnel work and one bounded trial, dependent on checking its properties, not a reserve for every new design the coalition might attempt.
Juno read the conditions and called the crew back from the disassembly.
“We can check,” she said. “We don’t have a completed assembly yet.”
The lead operator nodded. “That’s what we agreed to bring.”
The settlement engineer met them at the ordinary work point. She asked the operators to explain their proposed placement before carrying the components into the protected approach. They knew the alloy’s usual uses. She knew the repaired structure and the narrow turn where a convenient bracket could become another thing a carrier struck.
