By morning, the supply chamber had grown cold enough for everybody to notice the emergency key.
It lay on the custody table beneath its recorded tag.
Vivienne kept looking at the gauge instead.
The intake control had failed the previous evening. The crew had isolated it within the known conditions, protected the remaining path, and begun preparing the replacement. Full repair would take longer than the comfortable overlap in the day’s demand.
The reserve was real. So were the claims against it.
Nobody could rediscover the surplus the audit had removed.
A senior official arrived with an extension form.
“Only this incident,” he said. “Until service is secure.”
