Two days after the quench, Lisan came to the stabilization room carrying one signed statement.
The stabilization room was a small office off the engineering hall, which the Board had given the six names for the three network cycles the manifold had to run before it could be called finished. A long table, a window onto the courtyard trees, a rack of shelves along one wall with the record boxes on them. Every record from the growth, the descent, the opening and the quench. The forge record. The teaching notes. Tavin’s written log.
And on the shelf’s end, in its own box, an evidence box: grey steel with a seal on its hasp. Inside it, the sealed transcript of Mara’s recording. The two signals she had recorded at Lorn, long ago, in the forge’s control room during the trial: the official feed and the raw pulse, both, on the same strip. Printed. Sealed. With its header at the top, the line every Compact recording carried, naming the office that had authorized the feed.
Lisan set his statement on the table beside the box.
Mara had been at the table alone. The others were asleep: Tavin in the bench room, Sera on the Tern, Eshel at the rack with his head on his arms, Sen in the pump hall, Anwen at Lorn. The manifold was in its second network cycle and every gauge was steady, and the Board had sent the six names to bed, by order, in writing. Mara had…
