The food account closed on day 1100 with a small payment for a cracked sack and no missing guards.
Jora brought the completed sheet to the receiving keeper, who read it before putting it on the dry shelf. Both dated movements had returned. The guards’ wages and the agreed transport charges were paid. The spilled beans had not become an invented complete load, and the replaced sack had not become an excuse to leave the whole account open forever.
There was no third movement hidden beneath the signatures.
Two mornings later, Iven sat beside Sera’s reference instrument while the station operator checked the prepared charging feed.
His remaining reserve stood at three hundred and eighty-eight. The last measured ceiling had been four hundred and six. Since that measurement he had continued the controlled practice, ordinary work and rest intervals she required. The recordings showed cleaner transitions and less spill at the end of a held load. They did not award him a sixth channel.
“Same rate?” the operator asked.
“Twelve a minute,” Sera said. “Same stop.”
The external supply belonged to the workshop plant. Its fuel and operating turn were on the board. Iven’s new capacitor pattern was not selected. He would not smuggle an externally buffered pulse into his reserve and describe it as ordinary charging.
