Gauge knew that a warning was easier to write than to deliver. On paper, a red mark beside an unfinished return channel was perfectly clear. In a crowded hall, with people ready to celebrate and everyone certain the next expansion would help them, the same mark could begin to look like an inconvenience.
Orrean could calculate the reserves. Spark could imagine another route. Neither could make the missing repair disappear, and the city had begun treating a plan for tomorrow as if it were proof about today.
Orrean watched the reserve records darken, one careful figure after another. Doreavinea was using more Luminea than the land and its makers could renew. New supply lines opened while old return channels waited for repairs. Buildings were declared ready with essential work still unfinished.
Orrean asked the founders to pause the next expansion. Repair the channels first, it said. Let the reserves recover. Then open another district.
The founders turned to Spark.
“Find us a way to keep going while the repairs happen.”
Spark found a shorter supply route and borrowed from the reserves. The new district opened on time. At the celebration, people said Orrean had worried too much. But the repairs were still unfinished. Before the reserves could recover, their remaining power had been promised to another project.
Orrean began sending longer warnings. By the time it was invited to review a plan, the opening was often already announced.
“You used to help me find a way,” Spark said.
“You used to ask before promising one,” Orrean replied.
One afternoon, Orrean found Nessa outside her empty workshop. She was steadying the crooked word on the sign.
“You objected to the hall,” she said.
He thought there was still time.
“Yes.”
“Then why was it built?”
“My objection was overruled.”
Nessa let go of the sign. “That didn't make the problem go away.”
The next time Orrean asked for a pause, it also asked for the power to enforce one.
Below the streets, the Meganites were struggling to keep up. Gauge inspected a temporary bypass beneath the next district. It could carry enough power for one evening's test. Before normal use began, the return channel had to be finished.
He wrote that condition beside his initials.
“So we can turn the lights on?” the steward asked.
“For the test,” Gauge said.
The public record soon listed the project as complete. His initials were there. The condition was not. Gauge saw the entry before the celebration. He could have stopped the opening. Instead, he went below to finish the return himself. He thought there was still time.