Hesper Nakagawa (Human, Survey Lead, Fliade survey)

This is logged the way things are logged on Fliade, by someone who was there, and this time the one who was there had read every log the station had before setting foot on the floor of it, which is a different way of being there, and turned out to count.

The supply run came down in the usual wind, and one more person got off it than usual, with one pack, in uniform, and stood on the roof of the world looking at the station the way Nakagawa looked at ground.

Section Lead. A plain bar-count tab, two tiers under Nakagawa's own, and beside it, where a certification patch sits, the one Nakagawa had written for. The patch and not the tab. A tab says a Ranger is trusted to command. A patch says a Ranger is trusted to be right about one narrow thing, and the whole uniform is built so that nobody has to assume the second from the first, and Nakagawa, who had never once needed to be commanded on this planet, needed somebody to be right.

"Ferrant," she said. "Boundary monitoring. You wrote for one of us."

"I wrote for one of you."

"I'd like the file. Before I put the pack down, if that's all right. A thing read before you've settled is a thing you still see."

Nakagawa gave her the file. She read it standing in the wind, all of it, the seven entries in their rewritten form and the seven struck originals under them, which Nakagawa had kept, and Aravena's two observations, and the request, and the second-year file beside it with the eleven minutes. It took as long as a shift's log takes. She said nothing while she read. Egede came out and watched her read and went back in. When she had finished she closed it and did not hand it back.

"Good file," she said. "The struck entries are the best thing in it. Most people throw those away." And then, before Nakagawa could answer that: "What's on the third shelf of your instrument rack?"

Nakagawa had to think. Then did not have to.

"A gravimeter," said Nakagawa. "Boundary-side. Sealed. Dormant. It came with the station. We ticked it nominal on the manifest. Twice."

"Nominal," said Ferrant. "Yes. It would be. Show me."