The indicator was on the wall of the gate bay, by the lift, where they had stepped through the ring.
Sera saw it first. She had gone up on the lift to check the Tern, as she did every few hours, a habit Mara had stopped remarking on: up to the bay, through the ring, into the ship, a look at the fuel and the seals and the relay, and back down. This time she stayed up. She called on the link instead.
“Venn. Come up. Now.”
Mara went up. The lift took its usual long minutes, and she counted the windows again as they passed.
The bay was as it had been: long, low, grey, dimly lit. The ring at its end was dark, closed, with the Tern on the other side of it. Beside the lift, on the wall, there was a panel Mara had not noticed when they arrived, a plain grey plate with a row of small lights set into it and, below them, a narrow window of dark glass. When they had come in, Sera said, all the lights had been dark.
They were not dark now. One was lit, amber, the second from the left. And in the narrow window below, a word glowed.
