“Lorn can take a smaller pulse,” Anwen said.
She said it to the channel. To every council at once.
“Not path one as written,” she said. “Not the whole first pulse through Lorn’s buffer. A share of it. Smaller.” A pause. “If Meridian takes the rest at the same moment. Through the collar. So neither of us takes the whole surge.”
Mara turned to the board.
A split. Neither path. Both, in part.
Mara had not thought of it. She should have. It was what they had done at every turn since the collar: share the load, so nobody carried the whole of it. The coordinated cuts. The two control sets. The six names. She had been so busy refusing to choose for herself that she had not seen there was a third answer on the board.
Anwen had seen it. From Lorn. With her school behind her. Lorn’s buffer taking a smaller pulse, within what it had been tested for, and the collar taking the rest, less than the whole, so that jack four saw a smaller push.
“Eshel,” Anwen said. “Show me the Lorn reading.”
