Pellin came to the apprenticeship yard wearing the coat Krail’s man had left on the office bed. The cuff was torn. She had stitched it with blue thread that did not match the cloth, and she held a small purse so tightly that its strings had marked her fingers.
“He paid me,” she said when she saw Iven.
Neri looked up from the yard table. “All of it?”
“Five days. He said the sixth was a charge for replacing the trolley.”
“That trolley wasn’t yours,” Iven said.
“I told him that.”
“What did he say?”
“He said it wasn’t his either.”
Tavin, standing beside the press, made a sound through his nose. He had brought two captains and a woman from the passenger association. Liss Tarl had set out the failed pin from the previous test along with the gauge record, the delivery book, and a clean sheet for new observations. A small crowd gathered beyond the yard rail: workers who used the lifts, apprentices who knew what a test was supposed to look like, and three people Iven recognized from the queue outside Cage Seven.
Pellin slowed when she saw them. “You said witnesses.”
“We did,” Neri said. “You can still choose what you’re willing to tell them.”
“Will Krail be here?”
“He sent a representative.” Tavin nodded toward the far side of the yard.
A man in a dark coat stood near the gate with a rolled document tucked under his arm. He looked at the press as if it had personally insulted him. Two other men waited behind him. They had not entered the yard, but their positions narrowed the path to the street.
Pellin’s hand tightened around her purse.
“His name is Harl,” Tavin said. “He counts money for Krail. He doesn’t own the gate.”
“He can tell Krail what I say.”
“He can.” Tavin did not soften it. “So can anyone else here.”
Pellin turned toward the street. For a moment Iven thought she would leave, and he could not blame her. Then she opened the purse, took out a coin, and laid it on Liss’s table.
“What is that for?” Liss asked.
“For the charge,” Pellin said. “I want a receipt.”
Harl approached. “You have already received a receipt.”
“It doesn’t name the trolley. It says property damage.”
“Are you disputing the amount?”
“I’m asking what I paid for.”
The crowd moved closer. Harl glanced at them, then at the coin. “Your employer may deduct losses from wages.”
“Then he can write down the loss.”
Neri took a chair from the workshop and placed it beside Pellin. “Sit. Liss, do you have ink?”
“I have ink. I also have work.”
“This is work.”
Liss fetched the ink. Pellin sat, still holding the purse, while Harl unrolled his document. He had brought a declaration from Krail Haulage denying that the failed pin was part of its shipment. The declaration said the marks on the damaged pin had been altered after delivery.
“Which marks?” Iven asked.
“The supplier’s marks.”
“There are two sets.”
Harl looked at his document. “The marks that purport to identify the supplier.”
“Both sets purport to identify a supplier.”
“That is not a useful distinction.”
“It is if one was struck over the other.”
Harl offered him the declaration. Iven read it. The words were careful. Krail denied supplying a pin of the defective construction observed at the yard. He did not deny delivering a pin with the same external dimensions and a particular mark. He also stated that the pin could have been replaced during the overhaul.
“That last part is possible,” Iven said.
Neri turned toward him. “You think someone changed it?”
“I think we need to be able to tell the difference between possible and true.”
Harl’s expression brightened. “Exactly.”
“Don’t get excited,” Iven said. “The intact pin in Tavin’s sealed store failed under Liss’s press. The seal record and the people who opened it are written down. If you think someone changed that one, tell us when.”
Harl’s expression returned to its previous condition. “A seal can be replaced.”
“So can a declaration.”
Liss tapped the table with her pencil. “If you’re finished performing, I’d like to explain the result.”
She placed the failed pin on a block and showed the crowd the peeled sleeve. Several people pressed closer. Liss named the load at which the coating cracked and the lower load at which the core had begun to deform. She also pointed out what she could not know: she had not witnessed manufacture, delivery, or installation. Her confidence stopped where her evidence stopped.
Iven admired that more than he would have admitted to her.
Pellin took out the copied ledger entry. Her fingers trembled as she unfolded it. She read the dates aloud, stumbled over one number, and began again. The second time her voice carried across the yard.
“The destination was blank when I saw the entry in the evening book,” she said. “The lot and the count were already there. The destination was added afterward.”
Harl held out his hand. “May I see the copy?”
Pellin glanced at Neri. Neri nodded once. Pellin gave him the paper.
He examined it, then lifted the corner toward the light. “This is not an official copy.”
“No,” Pellin said. “It’s a copy I can read.”
A laugh escaped someone by the rail. Harl ignored it.
“The original remains in the loading house,” he said. “It would be improper to rely on an unauthorized transcription.”
“Then bring the original,” Tavin said.
“I cannot remove it without the storekeeper’s permission.”
“Bring him too.”
Harl rolled the copy loosely and set it on the table. “You are turning a supply question into a public accusation.”
“One of your pins nearly dropped a cage,” a woman at the rail said. “It was public before we arrived.”
Harl looked at her. She was one of the waiting passengers Iven recognized, a seamstress who had watched the cage tilt while a worker was inside. She wore the same yellow scarf today, tied more neatly.
“The cause of the cage incident is disputed,” he said.
“I watched it.”
“Your experience is not in dispute.”
“Then don’t tell me I imagined the floor moving.”
Liss lifted the pin again. “I propose another test. There is a third pin from the sealed crate. We compare it with a correctly rated pin of the same dimensions. Same press, same gauge, same witnesses.”
Harl folded his hands. “Where will you obtain the comparison?”
“From my stock.”
“Can you prove its origin?”
“I can show you the maker’s receipt.”
“And how do we know your stock hasn’t been altered?”
“Would you like to bring your own comparison?”
The question stopped him. He glanced at the men by the gate. One of them shifted his weight but did not come forward.
“I will need to consult Factor Krail.”
“Of course,” Liss said. “The press will still be here when you return.”
He left with the two men. The crowd opened for them, then closed again. Tavin watched until they had disappeared around the corner.
“He’ll bring a good pin,” Neri said.
“Probably,” Iven replied.
“And claim the bad one was ours.”
“Probably.”
Pellin leaned forward. “There’s another book.”
The yard went quiet. She looked uncomfortable at once.
“I didn’t think it mattered,” she said. “The loading house keeps a receipt for the carrier and a tally for the storekeeper. The tally lists the crate weight when it arrives. It’s kept downstairs.”
“Can the weight tell us what’s inside?” Tavin asked.
“Not exactly. But the crate from Sable was lighter than the order. I remember because the man weighing it wrote the number twice.”
“Why didn’t you tell us last night?” Neri asked.
“I was trying not to fall off a platform.”
“Fair.”
Pellin pointed to the copied entry. “The lot number is here. If the tally has the same number and a different weight, you can compare it with the shipment Krail says he sent.”
Iven imagined the paperwork as a series of bridges, none of them sound enough alone. A witness could remember incorrectly. A pin could be switched. A weight could be entered in the wrong column. But if the marks, weights, delivery record, and tested metal agreed, somebody would have to explain more than one accident.
“Do you know where the tally is now?” he asked.
“In a locked drawer.”
“Is the storekeeper likely to let us see it?”
“He might if the passenger association asks.”
The woman Tavin had brought stepped forward. “My name is Rella Venn. I can ask.”
Iven noticed Tavin watching her with the cautious respect he gave people who could refuse him. Rella wore a plain gray jacket and carried a bundle of tickets tied with string. She had the unhurried manner of someone who spent much of her life listening to complaints and deciding which ones could be solved today.
“You represent the passengers?” Iven asked.
“I represent those who pay dues. Others come to me when they need help, and I try not to ask about dues first.” She held out a hand to Pellin. “Will you come with me?”
Pellin glanced at the gate. “If he’s there?”
“I’ll ask him to leave us in peace. If he doesn’t, I’ll ask louder.”
“And if that doesn’t work?”
“Then we’ll have found out in front of witnesses.”
They went in a group: Rella, Pellin, Tavin, Iven, and two passengers who had witnessed the test. Neri stayed at the yard with the pins and the record. Before they parted, she caught Iven’s bruised wrist and turned his hand gently toward the light.
“You’re using it too much.”
“It’s my hand.”
“Yes. That’s why I’m suggesting you keep it.”
She wrapped it with a strip of clean cloth from her pocket. He let her, though the attention made him more self-conscious than the injury. When she tied the knot, she left enough room for his fingers to move.
“You can still hold your spanner,” she said.
“You know what matters to me.”
“Your tools have a more consistent reputation than you do.”
At the loading house, the storekeeper received Rella in a room with a window onto the freight lane. He was a narrow man with a stained collar and a habit of counting the people present before answering a question. When Pellin described the locked office, his lips pressed together.
“I was told you went home early,” he said.
“I tried to.”
He looked at Rella. “I didn’t order her restrained.”
“Then you should want the account corrected,” Rella said.
“I should.”
He fetched the tally himself. The drawer key hung on a cord around his neck. The book was heavy, its covers swollen at one edge from water damage. Pellin found the lot number. Beside it stood a weight, entered twice, with the second entry initialed.
Tavin opened his delivery book and compared the weight to the order. The difference was not enough to prove exactly what was in the crate. It was enough to show that the shipment was lighter than the specified components should have been.
The storekeeper read both numbers. “Could the packing have changed?”
“Yes,” Iven said. “Or the parts. We need the packing list to know.”
“I don’t have it.”
“Who does?”
“Krail’s receiving office.”
Rella asked for a certified copy of the tally. The storekeeper hesitated, then sent a boy for the office seal. Pellin sat at a desk and copied the entry in her careful hand. The storekeeper compared it with the original and stamped it.
When they came outside, the freight lane had grown noisy with afternoon deliveries. A wagon from Sable stood beside the rail. Its driver was arguing with a loader about an unpaid fee. Iven recognized the two-line mark on the wagon’s side.
A man in Krail’s colors approached the driver and passed him a folded note. The driver read it, looked toward the loading house, and climbed onto his seat without finishing the argument.
“Where’s he going?” Tavin asked.
The loader shrugged. “Krail’s yard, I suppose.”
Iven watched the wagon turn toward the upper track. It carried no visible cargo, but something small and heavy knocked against the inside of the bed with each uneven board.
Neri’s three pins were not the only parts from that lot. If Krail was collecting the others, the next test might become much harder.
Tavin folded the certified copy into his book. “I’ll send word to the captains.”
“Tell them to check stores before they install anything,” Rella said.
“And keep what they find,” Iven added. “With witnesses.”
Pellin looked at the departing wagon. “What if they won’t give it to you?”
“Then we’ll ask who has it,” Rella said. “In public.”
Iven thought of the man who had smiled outside the warehouse office, and of the trolley falling into the shaft. Public did not mean safe. It meant there were more people who could see what happened.
For now, that was something.