About
Flies in from Vancouver, spends four hours finding Sarah, and reaches her on a lakeshore about an hour after she has been swimming. States her name, her travel and her time budget in one breath. Produces identification unasked and holds it up long enough to be read, which the narration marks as more than most people do. The case she brings: a freight hull on final approach to a certified junction, whose entry state stopped agreeing both with her own inertials and with the reference. The hull aborted. There are injuries and nobody is dead. The solution had been certified at six o'clock that morning, their time, stamped and numbered.
Flies in from Vancouver, spends four hours finding Sarah, and reaches her on a lakeshore about an hour after she has been swimming. States her name, her travel and her time budget in one breath. Produces identification unasked and holds it up long enough to be read, which the narration marks as more than most people do. The case she brings: a freight hull on final approach to a certified junction, whose entry state stopped agreeing both with her own inertials and with the reference. The hull aborted. There are injuries and nobody is dead. The solution had been certified at six o'clock that morning, their time, stamped and numbered. She wants Sarah in Ottawa that night, for a room being assembled — "half of it's people who've never had to work off somebody else's certificate." Sarah says two minutes and goes.