The signing table stood at the front of the hall, below the chair’s platform, on the eighth hour.
It was one of the long tables, cleared and pulled forward, with a single sheet laid on it: the outlet plan, written fair by the clerk from the rule and the pressure paths and the figures. Three outlets named. Hearth’s return. The relief each path could carry. The tolerances. The operating agreement beneath, in clauses, with lines for signatures at the foot.
Caldris sat on the Compact’s side with a slate and a pen.
Behind her, standing, two Compact engineers held folders. The verified calculations: every figure Mara and Eshel had given the Council, rebuilt from the raw file by the panel’s own engineers, checked, and bound. One of the engineers was the woman who had stopped Eshel’s megawatts at the guild hall four days ago. She held her folder against her chest and watched Caldris.
Mara sat across from Caldris with her dressed arm on the table. She had not meant to put it there. It ached less on the wood.
“The Compact is asked to sign the outlet plan,” the chair said. “As the authority holding the outlets’ seals.”
Caldris looked at the sheet.
