“No.”
For the first time, Eleanor’s expression changed slightly.
Not irritation.
Assessment.
Isaac continued.
“If this has anything to do with Nexora Aerospace, I signed an agreement six years ago. I don’t discuss them. I don’t discuss their hardware. I don’t discuss their software. I don’t discuss anything I touched while employed there.”
“This does not require you to discuss Nexora’s commercial interests.”
“Then what does it require?”
Eleanor reached under her arm.
She had been carrying a thick manila folder with a red security band around its lower edge.
She placed it on the hood of Raymond’s truck.
“This requires you to look at numbers.”
Isaac stared at the folder.
“Numbers are usually how people get me into trouble.”
“Not these.”
“What are they?”
“Telemetry.”
Isaac’s gaze sharpened.
“From?”
“A satellite.”
“Whose?”
“I can tell you if you agree to the appropriate handling conditions.”
“That sounds like ten minutes turning into paperwork.”
“It probably will.”
Isaac almost smiled.
Almost.
Eleanor rested one hand lightly on the folder.
“The satellite is designated OBSIDIAN-7.”
Isaac’s expression went completely still.
She saw it.
That was why she had flown to Texas herself.
Not recognition of the satellite name.
Recognition of the category of problem.
“I think,” Eleanor said carefully, “that you already know what is failing because six years before we launched it, you wrote a report describing what would fail.”
Isaac did not move.
The radio behind him played a slow trumpet passage.
A compressor clicked off in the back of the garage.
Across the road, somebody started an impact wrench.
Ordinary sounds.
Isaac looked down at the folder.
Then back at Eleanor.
“Leave it.”
“Mr. Merritt—”
“Leave it there.”
She stopped.
“I’ll look when I’m ready.”
He turned away.
Walked into the garage.
Poured coffee from a dented machine that had been running since before dawn.
For a full minute he stood with his back to her.
Eleanor remained beside the truck.
She did not check her phone.
She did not wave anybody out of the Suburbans.
She simply waited.
Isaac noticed that too.
Eventually, he returned.
He opened the folder.
The first page contained pressure telemetry.
Rows of values.
Timestamps.
Cycle identifiers.
Thruster commands.
Valve positions.
Thermal readings.
He scanned the first column.
Then the second.
Four seconds later, he pulled the metal stool away from the bench and sat down.
Eleanor said nothing.
Isaac turned to page two.
Then three.
Then four.
The numbers were not random.
That was the first thing.
Random degradation wandered.
This returned.
Repeated.
Drifted.
Recovered.
Then repeated again.
The rhythm was buried beneath layers of normal operational noise, but Isaac knew the shape of it because he had spent six weeks of his life watching simulated versions of that pattern appear on screens while everyone around him insisted the assumptions were too conservative.
He stopped on page six.
“How long?”
Eleanor answered immediately.
“Current best estimate, thirty-one days.”
Isaac looked up.
“Best estimate or optimistic estimate?”
“Thirty-one is our median model.”
“So optimistic.”
“Our worst case is twenty-four.”
He leaned back.
“After that?”
“The attitude-control margin degrades below mission requirements.”
“Meaning?”