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The Red Basin male looked from Dreven to Kesta, muttered something the translator prudently declined to render, and accepted the original rate. After the wagon moved away, Pela pressed one blue chit into Kesta's palm.

Kesta frowned. “What's this?”

“Your share.”

“I didn't sell anything.”

“You saved more water than that chit buys.”

Kesta looked at the small piece of stamped ceramic.

“It is evidence,” Pela added.

“Of what?”

“That your irritating habit of reading numbers has value.”

Kesta smiled. It shouldn't have mattered. It did. She had been given rations before. Assigned housing. Protection. Medical supplies. This was different. She had contributed something because she knew how to do it, and Ash Camp had valued the work without needing Dreven's claim to explain why. Kesta curled her fingers around the token.

“Thank you.”

Pela blinked as though gratitude had not been part of the expected transaction. Then her ears lifted.

“You're welcome.”

Tavi arrived at the infirmary shortly after midday carrying an old imperial reader wrapped in enough copper wire to suggest it had survived at least one explosion. Kesta stared at the device.

“I thought we needed the courier diagnostic bench.”

“We do if you want everything.”

He placed the reader on the worktable. “This may give us something.”

Sera leaned over it. “Will it catch fire?”

Tavi considered.

“Not immediately.”

Kesta pulled a chair closer. The black memory crystal removed from her band had been sealed inside an insulated case. She placed the crystal into the reader's shielded port while Tavi adjusted three contacts and whispered something encouraging to the machine.

“You talk to equipment?”

“It responds better.”

“You kicked the scanner.”

“That was a different relationship.”

The display flickered. Static crawled across it. Then a medical header appeared.

SUBJECT STATUS: VIABLE.

Kesta's amusement vanished. Beneath the header ran lines of biometric data—pulse, temperature, stress hormones, sleep cycles and proximity readings spanning back farther than she expected. She leaned closer.

“Scroll to the first entry.”

Tavi did. The timestamp corresponded to atmospheric descent. Before Kesta had reached the surface. Before she had met Dreven. Yet the log already contained a second signal.