The Sunward Board met after midnight, because the final assembly could not wait for morning.
The gallery was full. Every chair taken, and people standing at the back, and on the long wall the links: Nemi from Lorn, in her classroom with the lamps half lit; Bren from Tal, in his crew room with the shaft maps behind him; Pell from Cinder; the outer ring’s delegate in her scarf. Lisan sat in the front row, back from the hearing room, with his custody log on his knees. The Meridian engineer from the district works sat beside him with his folder. Sen stood at the gallery’s side with her arms folded, for the guild. The clerk at her desk with the record open.
Mara stood at the plate.
She had the corrected model on it. Eshel’s model, built from the gauges, every UNVERIFIED mark that had been checked removed and every one that had not still showing. The manifold’s eight modules. The branches and their three limits. And the reservoir line, which had bent toward level after the collar went on and had not fallen since.
“Entered,” the clerk said.
Mara pointed at the plate.
“Three outcomes,” she said.
She drew them. Three columns.
