The negotiation room was on the Hold's second floor.
Long table. Good light. The specific functional quality of a room built for decisions rather than impressions. I had been in it once before, for a different purpose, and had noted the archive wall on the east side where the historical water rights documentation had been sitting since the previous Alpha's administration.
Cael Orin was setting up when I arrived.
He looked at me.
At my white coat — I was coming from a morning shift and had kept it on, partly for practical reasons and partly because I was Dr. Nara Voss Ashveil and I was in my husband's negotiation room and the coat had my name on it.
"You've reviewed the archive records," Cael said.
"Yes," I said.
"The 1987 water allocation document," he said.
"Yes," I said.
"The on
