The slate lay on the bench face up after Caldris left, its screen glowing with the route code, and nobody touched it.
Lisan stood by the wall. He had not moved since he came in behind Sera. He was looking at the slate, and at the notebook with Caldris’s admission in it, and at the number beside her signature.
“What did you see,” Mara said. “Before the repair. Before I came. You’ve been on Lorn. You said three years, reading the raw feed on every lamp you were sent to. What did you see?”
Lisan was quiet for a moment.
“I saw the consolidation schedule,” he said. He spoke in clauses, each one set down separately, as he always did. “Before it reached Lorn. A maintenance specialist is sent the schedule’s technical annex, so that the lamp’s equipment can be prepared for retirement. I received it six weeks before the notice.” He paused. “Its figures disagreed with the heart’s figures.”
“Which figures?”
“The schedule said Lorn’s heart was failing. It gave figures for the failure: output decline, channel degradation, grain fatigue. The figures were consistent with a heart at the end of its life.” Another pause. “The heart’s own sensors gave different figures. The raw feed. I read it. Lorn’s heart was degrading, yes. Slowly. The way any heart degrades. It had decades of life left in it, by any honest reading.” He looked at the floor. “And then, two weeks before the notice, the heart’s figures changed. Suddenly. All…
