The integration took nine seconds and went nothing like anything else in the competition. A seam branch built from a river dock and eleven ridgeback modules went into an empty slot in a Grade Five core, with no compatibility figure available.
[Composite branch: integrating.]
[Compatibility: 44%.]
Forty-four is the lowest figure the Forge has ever accepted, and it accepted this one. Anything below fifty means a branch that works and hurts, in a body that will spend a week paying for whatever it does.
Luna had put the number at fifty-five in her own estimate two days earlier. She has said that being eleven points wrong about a thing going into a man's core is the worst work of her career, and nobody has argued with her about it.
Vell came off the equipment case with the seam branch running through his left side.
