There was an observation window on the drum’s upper walkway, a round port of thick glass looking down onto the central platform, and Caldris stood at it.
Mara had no idea how long she had been there. She looked up from laying the new crown over the fourth channel, the patch, and saw the auditor’s face in the round glass above her, composed, watching. Caldris had her slate in one hand. She had watched the pinch, Mara thought, and the opening, and the crown plate lifted off with the tongs.
The window had a speaking grille. Caldris’s voice came through it, even, unhurried.
“A licensed worker,” she said, “would never be permitted this improvisation.”
Mara set down the tongs.
“Opening a fold after it has taken,” Caldris went on. “Removing a layer. Laying a patch of different stock. Forging a heart that is visibly uneven. None of it is in the procedure. A licensed worker who did any of it would lose the license.”
“No licensed worker has made this repair,” Mara said.
She said it without heat. She was too tired for heat. She said it the way she would say a figure off the caliper.
