The morning after the breakthrough, Tamsin found Felix trying to adopt a contact plate.
“It was the first one,” he said.
“It’s still the working one.”
He held the bright copper between two careful fingers. It had a narrow wear line from the trial and otherwise looked exactly as her drawing said it should.
“For history.”
“History can look through the service cover. Put it back.”
He did, with the air of a collector returning a stolen treasure to an unreasonable museum.
Nell Quist crouched beside the opened housing. She checked the wear mark against the gauge, then passed it to Tamsin. The quarter-turn service collar came apart cleanly, leaving enough room for both of them to work without scraping a hand over the adjacent fittings.
