The metal came down from the engineering hall’s vaults on three trolleys, and by the second hour of the morning it covered the bench.
Mara had asked for it in the request: every bar, plate and sheet in every store on every world. She had expected the guild’s stores and the district works’. She had not expected this.
Auditor rods, in their felt cases. Engine collars from the Compact’s freight haulers, heavy rings of graded metal, unbolted from engines that would not fly again. Orchard regulators from the Meridian courtyards: the valves that had kept the trees warm while the lower terraces froze, each one a small heart of its own, with a mirror-iron seat. And on the last trolley, alone, a sealed case. Steel, the size of a footlocker, with a Compact seal on its hasp and a stencil on its lid.
DIRECTOR’S RESERVE. HIGH GRADE.
Tavin sorted it.
He laid out trays along the bench, numbered in grease pencil. One to twenty. He took each object off the trolleys, one at a time, and set it on a tray. Rods on one to four. Collars on five to nine. Regulators on ten to sixteen. The sealed case he left on the trolley, because no tray would hold it.
