Krail’s foreman came to the cooperative at noon and asked to speak where the apprentices could not hear.
Dessa took him into the open yard, where everyone could see him instead.
Iven knew the man by his limp and the scar across his lower lip. He had supervised part of the freight-housing job whose wages Krail had eventually paid. Today he wore no company mark. A small cloth bundle hung from one hand.
“I’ve left,” he said.
Dessa waited.
“There’s men being paid to take your receiving frames apart. Tonight, or the next. They were told to leave the shaped pieces where the watch can find them.”
“To make them look stolen?” Neri asked.
“To make them unusable.”
