The second comparison took longer than the first. A small contact on the sample tray had warmed unevenly, and the dungeon engineer refused to let Juno compensate for it in the calculation before checking the contact itself. Eli watched her take the piece apart. With every careful turn of the screw, the reservoir continued consuming its dead.
He wanted to tell her that the first result was enough. He had not actually seen the first result.
Tessa pulled a stool into the narrow space beside him. She sat without inviting him to do the same. After a while he sat too.
Across the chamber, Mira held a lamp over the distributed bridge sheet. The light caught the dent where someone had rested a hot tool against the table. There were ordinary objects in this place. Eli tried to pay attention to them while the engineer reassembled the contact, rather than treating the whole room as an antechamber to his answer.
“Repeat supply,” she said.
Juno gave the bounded test current. Nothing connected Eli to it. The sample rested on its separate supports, and the comparison used the bonds’ recorded structure rather than drawing power through his living channels. Tessa watched his face anyway. They had learned to distinguish precautions from assurances.
