Odren’s voice came over the Tal link at the tenth hour of the night, while Mara was writing the street.
She had been at it since the archive’s margin. Tavin’s draw the street next had stayed with her, and she had taken the teaching notes up to the gallery, where the desk was wide and the lamp was good, and begun. Not a drawing; she could not draw. A description. Coil Stair, a narrow lane on the slope above the conveyor bridge. A row of four-story tenements built against each other like books on a shelf. Number six near the top. Two flights of cold stone stairs.
The Tal link chimed on the gallery wall.
“Discharge path clear from Tal’s side,” Odren said.
Mara looked up.
His face on the screen, in a patrol captain’s coat, with the escort station at Tal behind him and its maps. He had been on the corridor since the coup, holding the dock lane and the Tal route open under his own commission. Mara had not heard his voice in days.
“Rank and record agree,” Odren said. “The discharge route from the well, through Tal’s return, to the shaft store. Walked by my escort and Bren’s crew together. Both logs match.” A pause. “Report when the valve moves.”
