ARRIVAL
They came at midmorning of the second day.
Four vehicles. Classification authority standard — grey, unmarked except for the survey commission seal on the lead vehicle's door, the kind of transport that announced institutional weight without needing to announce itself. Kai watched from the upper survey room window as they came down the eastern district's main approach and pulled into the academy's outer courtyard with the practiced economy of a team that had done this many times.
Seven people. He counted them as they stepped out.
A lead assessor — he knew the type before she turned around. The particular quality of someone who had been in the field long enough that authority had become a posture she no longer needed to adopt consciously. She wore the commission's grey with the easy fit of a second skin. She looked at the formation's upper ridge before she looked at anything else.
That was useful information.
