"It repeats every orbit."
Eleanor stared at the pattern.
Ninety-three minutes.
A sensor could drift. A sensor did not usually respect orbital geometry.
She pulled the original Prometheus Drive design files.
The archive was enormous and badly indexed. Final certifications appeared first. Executive summaries next. Test results sat behind them. Historical dissent lived where most organizations put inconvenient things: deep enough that no one looking for reassurance would find it accidentally.
Eleanor searched thermal, regulation, resonance, pressure authority, and anomaly.
Nothing.
Then she searched personnel-linked engineering exceptions.
A restricted archive returned one result.
MERRITT, ISAAC R. SYSTEM-LEVEL ENVIRONMENTAL COUPLING REVIEW. MARCH 14, 2017.
She opened it at 11:42 p.m.
At 1:17 a.m., she was still reading.
The report did not perfectly predict the current telemetry because Isaac had lacked the flight data. But the structure of the failure was there. Thermal cycling. Mechanical response.
Progressive degradation. Delayed onset. Loss of pressure authority.
The final recommendation had been marked nonconcurred by program leadership.
Eleanor checked the flight approval packet.
Isaac's name did not appear.
She checked the separation date.
Two weeks later.
At 2:03 a.m., she called Cameron Ashford.
By then he was no longer a Nexora executive. He had become a senior technical adviser under a consulting arrangement supporting several government programs.
He answered on the fourth ring.
"Eleanor?"
"I found a 2017 analysis by Isaac Merritt on the Prometheus secondary regulator."
Silence.
Not long. Less than a second.
Enough.
"That report was not validated," Cameron said.
"You remember it."
"Of course I remember it. Isaac was a senior engineer."
"The current telemetry resembles his predicted failure mode."
"Resembles is not proves."
"Why isn't his analysis referenced in the final risk register?"
"Because it did not pass peer review."
"Why was he terminated two weeks later?"
Cameron's voice cooled.
"Personnel matters are not appropriate for this call."
"Was he terminated because of the report?"
"No."
"You're certain?"
"He was terminated for a security violation."
"Do you believe his technical analysis was wrong?"
"I believe the approved design met the accepted qualification basis."
That was not an answer either.
Eleanor ended the call at 2:11 a.m.
By sunrise she had modeled the remaining operational margin.
Thirty-two days.
She booked a flight to San Antonio.
Her deputy asked why the director of systems engineering was personally traveling to a mechanic's garage.
Eleanor answered with the only explanation that mattered.
"Because someone already made the mistake of deciding where expertise is allowed to live."
At Merritt Repair, she now watched Isaac sketch the resonance relationship on packing paper and understood how much institutional damage could hide behind a personnel label.
"I'll get you the data," she said.