Brin found that the ground dispatch board had an inconvenient number of doors.
On Mercy, most people looking for him arrived through one passage and could be sent back along it with an answer. Here, a courier could come from the lower road, the receiving frames, the food stores or the shelter wards. An answer written neatly on the wrong shelf was no answer to the person waiting outside another door.
He moved the waiting slips before the evening rush began.
The older dispatcher sharing the first part of his shift watched him make the change.
“Your reason?”
“Return direction. Not where the request started. If the courier’s going back to the lower road, he shouldn’t have to search three shelves because somebody’s cousin lives in a north shelter.”
The woman considered the new arrangement, then moved two slips herself.
“That one came from the frames. Its answer goes to the cookhouse.”
