Aldis wanted to be unassailable.
"That's not a threat," Sera Voss said. "I want to be clear about that. It's an ambition. They've been patient because ambition and impatience make expensive errors."
"And now?" Ryke said.
"And now they've sent me to report on whether this territory is what their thirty years of patience has been building toward, or whether the specific circumstances here are—" She paused. "Different enough from the historical precedent that the calculation changes."
"Different how," Mitch said.
She looked at Mitch. The first time she'd looked at him directly — and whatever she found in his expression registered as more significant than she'd expected.
"The previous three Stabilizer territories," she said, "were built after the Stabilizer's significance was understood.
