Dale shifted awkwardly.
"I need an opinion."
Isaac waited.
Dale placed the part on the bench.
"Customer's got an old diesel. We rebuilt the top end twice. Keeps losing compression on four. Pressure test looks good cold. Falls apart hot. My guys are out of ideas."
Isaac unwrapped the head.
"You called it garbage yet?"
Dale's face reddened.
"Look, I know I've been an ass."
"Six years."
"Probably longer."
"Definitely."
Dale looked toward the floor.
"I heard what happened with the government people. Not the details. Just that it was serious. And I figured maybe I've been making a joke out of something I didn't understand."
Isaac stared at him.
"You didn't need satellites to know I could fix engines."
Dale winced.
"No."
"You watched customers drive out of here for six years."
"Yeah."
"You just liked the story where I was the guy working on junk."
Dale did not defend himself.
"Yeah."
The honesty surprised Isaac.
He looked at the cylinder head.
"Leave it."
Dale blinked. "That's it?"
"You want help or absolution?"
"Help."
"Then leave it."
The fault turned out to be a tiny distortion near a valve seat that appeared only under heat. Isaac showed Dale the measurement the next afternoon.
He did not charge him.
Dale tried to pay anyway.
"Don't make this weird," Isaac said.
"It's already weird."
"Fair."
Something changed between the two shops after that.
Not friendship.
Dale still charged too much for brake jobs, in Isaac's opinion. Isaac still refused to advertise properly, in Dale's. But the fence-line commentary stopped.
Occasionally, Dale sent over a repair his shop lacked the time or patience to solve.
Occasionally, Isaac sent a routine alignment job across the road because Merritt Repair did not own the equipment.
Harlow noticed.
Small towns notice everything.
The NASA team noticed different changes.
Adrian began calling once or twice a week even after the emergency phase ended. At first, the calls were technical.
He would send a plot and ask what Isaac saw.
Isaac would ask what Adrian saw.
"I called you for the answer."
"Bad habit."
"You're impossible."
"Still waiting."
Eventually Adrian stopped asking for answers first.
He began saying, "I think the coupling is here because the phase shift moves before the amplitude does. Tell me what I'm missing."
Isaac would say, "Better."