Sera opened the lists on the Tern’s screen an hour later, with a rescue line still wrapped around her left wrist.
She had not asked anyone’s permission. She had walked out of the yard office after Caldris said closed, down the river road to the Low Brace pad, into the Tern. When Mara found her there, she was sitting in the pilot’s seat with the Tern’s relay open and a coil of rescue line from the cargo bay looped round her wrist, the free end trailing on the cockpit floor, as if she had picked it up to do something and forgotten what.
“I called someone,” she said, without looking round. “From the rescue service. Who still owes me.” She gave no name. “The Compact’s standing list isn’t closed. Not to everyone. It goes out to the Directorates. Every city with a lamp gets a copy. So their offices know who to put on the ships.” She tapped the screen. “Halvek’s office has had it for years.”
On the screen, a document. The Compact’s seal at the top. A title. Refuge provision: dependent families and essential specialists. Cinder and associated districts.
And a list.
The first page listed families, by count. Household numbers, with the number of members in each, and a priority code. The second page listed specialists, by post. By title, with a name column at the right. Lamp engineer, senior. Grid analyst. Surgeon. Agricultural director. Each with a household number linking it back to the first page.
