Chapter 11: What Dmitri Names Without Knowing

The storm had eased by morning, leaving behind the particular silence that follows weather on the coast — not quiet exactly, but a suspension, as though the station itself was taking stock of what it had given and what it still intended.

Callum sorted through the night's readings before six, alone in the data room in the grey before anyone else was awake. This was his established hour. He had developed the practice years ago, at one posting or another — the early shift that was not a shift so much as a preference for the particular quality of the air before it had been claimed by the day. He worked through the sensor outputs methodically, flagged two that would need attention before the afternoon, and set the thermal printouts from J-7 on Sera's desk with the 2008 comparison underneath, clipped together. He did this and then stood for a moment looking at the arrangement and then moved to his own workstation and did not look at her desk again.

He had given himself until seven to be finished and out of the room before the station woke.