Ferra reopened the iron slot beneath the stasis podium while Hajin flipped through the physician's retained logs inside the vault. She lifted a sealed blood vial from its sleeve, showing him intact wax beside a label citing the western chamber.
"Western captive's specimen, says the physician," he read, matching the vial's number against the logged claim, "all sealed and labelled like a jar of pickles, the sick bastard."
"Nobody breaks that wax but Didi," she said, tucking the sleeve against her apron, "not you, not me, and not a clumsy stair."
She carried the sleeved vial to orchard staging herself, wax whole until Didi accepted it beside the altar.
Night settled over the orchard while Ferra checked casing ribs and three dispersal plates above the right forearm's cooled brace. The load bypassed injured pathways as she tapped each catch with a mallet, sparing the severe-impact indicator beside its seam.
