By the third week, Rowan had the compound organized.
This was not planned. Rowan had no plans — Rowan had needs, and opinions about whether those needs were being met, and the specific full-volume vocabulary to express the distinction. But the compound had arranged itself around those needs with the efficiency of a community that had been preparing for this arrival for fifty years and was not going to let the preparation go to waste.
The morning rotation had organized itself without announcement.
Kira came first — the bloodline check, the practical assessment, the specific knowledge that no one else in the compound had and which she applied with the focused care of someone who understood that this was the most important work she had ever done. She came with tea for me, coffee for Darius
