Caldris sat down at the bench in the lowest chamber that evening, without being asked, on Sera’s stool, and put her hands flat on the table.
Mara had not expected her. She had come down to check the patched valve, which was still holding at a quarter, still leaking its thread, and to write the day’s readings in the cradle log, and she had found the auditor sitting there in the light of the work lamp with her slate face down beside her and her hands flat on the scarred alloy, as if she were holding the bench down.
Sera came in behind Mara and stopped in the doorway. Lisan came in behind Sera.
Caldris kept her eyes on the bench.
“I knew,” she said, “that lamps were being consolidated.”
Nobody said anything. The valve hissed its thread at the end of the bench. The work lamp ticked.
“Under Compact review,” Caldris said. “There is a schedule. It is called the consolidation schedule. It is reviewed by a committee of the Compact’s senior directors and implemented through the auditors. I am one of the auditors.” She spoke in complete sentences, each one the same length, each one level. “The schedule lists lamps whose hearts are failing. It assigns each one a date. It assigns each one an auditor. The auditor’s duty is to ensure that the lamp’s retirement is orderly. That the evacuation lists are followed. That panic is contained. That the procedure is carried out.”
