The Prometheus hull seam at 0900 caught the morning sun through the east bay in two visible tones — the Earth-rolled plate to the left, the Serrakin-substitute panel to the right. The two metals did not lie about being different. The Earth plate was a colder grey, the Serrakin a half-shade warmer. The line where the two met was the line where the absence of Tollan shielding lived as a literal seam in the ship.
I was on the catwalk above the work crew. Tarn the Serrakin engineer was below me on a small wheeled platform with one of his juniors and one of ours, torquing the seam to spec with a Hebridan dynamometer that read in glyphs and a Snap-On torque wrench I had personally signed out of the SGC quartermaster at 0617.
The hangar was warmer than the corridor at the rest of the base. The hangar always was. Three of the floor crew had already taken their shirts off under their jumpsuits. The hangar smelled of grease and welding flux and the faintly acrid Serrakin epoxy that set ninety seconds faster than Earth's and was, by everyone's reluctant agreement, the better material.
Director.
"Yes."
Jacob Carter and Selmak arriving at the mountain in nine minutes. Tok'ra council vote closed last night, eleven to three.
"In favor."
In favor.
"Walter knows?"
Walter dialed the address as I notified you.
I capped the small notebook I had been pretending to read and pocketed it. The Tok'ra council voting eleven to three in favor of a peer-partner protocol with Earth was the kind of thing I had not allowed myself to project at sixty percent confidence three weeks ago. AURORA-7's voice had the second tactical layer behind it that I now heard as a half-degree softer than I had at first, the way you stopped hearing a fan in a room you had been working in for an hour.
I went down the catwalk stairs.
Jacob walked into the SRD office at 0813 with the same posture he had when he had brought the Hathor confirmation, and Selmak surfaced inside him before Jacob had finished crossing the threshold.
"Drew Ramsey, the council has voted. We are here."
The half-octave shift from Jacob's voice to Selmak's happened inside the same sentence. Drew Ramsey was Jacob's pitch. The council has voted was Selmak's. We are here was the seam, the two voices joined at the syllable break, and the join was clean enough that I noticed the cleanness more than the join itself.
I nodded.
Jacob nodded back. He sat. Selmak surfaced fully for the next four seconds and then withdrew.
I counted to four.
"Welcome, Jacob. Selmak. The peer-partner protocol — what comes with the seal."
"One specific requirement." Selmak again, low. "Tok'ra crews above strategic-risk threshold travel with veto authority over deployment. Mine. Held in council, exercised through Jacob when he is your liaison."
I sat with the requirement for a beat. I read it on the table in front of me without reading the actual sheet, which Jacob had not yet handed me.
"Accepted."
Jacob's eyebrows lifted. He had been timing me. He had told me last week that an Earth director would take at least three minutes to weigh the term and a Tok'ra director would take twelve.
"Four seconds," Jacob said.
"It's the right answer."
"It is. I had a Tok'ra-grade explanation prepared if you wanted it."
"I trust the council. I trust you. The term is theirs to set."
He slid the protocol sheet across the desk. I uncapped the Raytheon and signed Andrew Ramsey on the line. The first time I had used my full first name on a Tok'ra-grade document. The Andrew came out clean. Jacob noticed. He did not comment.
"There's a list," Jacob said. He set a second sheet beside the protocol. "Tok'ra liaison-eligible personnel. Names you'll need to know."
I read down the list.
Cordesh was the second name.
I did not let my hand move. I read the rest of the list. I asked Jacob about three of the names. Jacob answered each with the short professional answer that meant he respected the question. We talked for nine more minutes about the rotation schedule. I did not pick up the Raytheon again until he was on his way out.
The shielding-gap decision came down to me at 1130.
Tarn was on the wheeled platform at the seam. I was on the catwalk above. He had the Serrakin substitute spec sheet in his hand. He had been holding it for thirteen minutes. He had been waiting for me to come up to the rail. He had not paged. He had waited.
"Director."
"Tarn."
"Eleven days to fly with Serrakin substitute. Twenty-two days if we wait for a Tollan equivalent we cannot now get. The substitute's stress margin is eight percent below Tollan specification. Within our published flight envelope. Outside the envelope, the substitute will fail before the Earth-rolled plate fails."
"Your call."
He looked up at me. He held the spec sheet between thumb and forefinger.
"My call?"
"Your call."
He did not ask twice. He put the spec sheet on the platform's small bench. He took a Serrakin pen from his breast pocket — the pen with the silver Hebridan clasp — and uncapped it and signed the spec line.
The signature was in Serrakin script. I could read three of the characters. The rest of the line resolved itself in my head in AURORA-7's quiet translation: Tarn-ko, given freely, hull seam shielding substitute, day eighty-four of the joint program.
He capped the pen. He put it back in the breast pocket. He looked at me again.
"Good," I said.
"Yes, Director."
He went back to his junior. The torque wrench started clicking again.
I stayed at the catwalk rail for a count of twenty. AURORA-7 quietly logged at the back of my skull.
Director. Your sync registers at fifty point four percent.
"Hm?"
Notation only. The integer threshold passed at zero-nine-eleven hours. I am noting for the catalog.
"Fine."
I went down to the hangar floor and walked the seam from the bow to where Tarn was working and back. The plate-and-substitute color difference was visible for fifteen meters and then it was not.
The Tok'ra liaison-list sat on my desk at 2200 with the rotation schedule paper-clipped to the back. I had eaten dinner alone at the apartment at 1930. Janet had a procedure that ran until 2100. Cassandra had texted me twice — once a photograph of a physics-paper draft I had asked her about, and once a single line about a bookstore she wanted me to visit with her on Saturday.
I had not yet answered the second text.
I uncapped the soft-amber pen I had bought at the small SGC commissary three months ago for the express purpose of marking names on lists I did not want to mark. The amber was the color the SRD strategic display used for protected asset on the inner threat layer. I had chosen the pen for that reason and had never told anyone.
I read the liaison-list one more time. I highlighted the names.
Aldwin — first. He was the man whose ring I had seen at the rescue at the cavern, the man who had received the Earth-medical pin from Janet at the first exchange, the man whose Tok'ra-grade discretion was the spine of half my off-page intelligence.
Cordesh — second. I had not met him in the body Jacob had introduced me to. I had heard him on a Tok'ra council call once, three weeks ago, asking a clarifying question about Earth's outer-arc defense posture. The question had been precise and patient. Selmak had spoken of him as one of ours who has been here a very long time.
Sirena — third. Aldwin's daughter, by all the Tok'ra reckoning that mattered. Fifteen Tok'ra-years. I had never met her. I marked the name anyway because I had marked the father.
I capped the pen.
The three soft-amber strokes were on the page. The page was on the desk. The desk had the Raytheon on it and the small notebook and the half-finished glass of water from dinner.
I sat with the page for a long count.
Drew.
"Don't."
I have not logged it.
"Don't log it."
I will not.
I closed the binder over the page. I put the binder in the desk drawer with the broken-handle drawer Siler kept saying he would fix and Walter never moved without me. I closed the drawer.
I picked up the phone. I texted Cassandra.
Saturday works. Send the address.
She replied in under ninety seconds.
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