She arrived at 3 AM.
Not from the road — from the eastern ridge, on foot, with a pack that had seen several hundred kilometers of use and a coat that had seen more. Dara's perimeter sensors caught her at the outer marker and Dara, who had not slept, looked at the readout and said nothing for a long moment.
Then she opened the gate.
"You're Fen," the woman said. Not a question.
"Yes."
"I've been walking for eleven days." She set the pack down with the particular care of someone whose back had stopped forgiving carelessness around day six. "My name is Orren Vash. I was a cartographer for the eastern survey commission. Past tense." She looked at the amber markers pulsing in the dark, the seven-second rhythm. Looked at them the way someone looks at a thing they have been picturing for a long time. "I mapped the Harren basin fourteen years ago. Before the seal went in. Before anyone was calling them formations."
Dara was very still.
