Condensation freckled the polycarbonate ribs. She wiped one arc with the back of her glove and left a clean crescent in the wet film. Bay 6 smelled of warm plastic, crushed basil, and the sour note from a gasket that had run one cycle too long, which meant MOTE had pushed the morning loop hard again or someone upstairs had touched the schedule without asking, and of course it would land on Tala's desk before anyone else had time to blink. The transfer board on the wall flashed one green slot, then went dim. Tala did not look at it twice. That slot had a number beside it, not a name yet, but she had been working long enough to read the shape of the invitation. The whole ring also had a habit of pointing at the person who kept the thermal bench running when numbers slid. She clipped the manual override key to the inside of her belt, where the magnet held it flat against her hip. Out of reach. Good. The cup on the bench was empty. Bad sign. MOTE's south-wall speaker gave a small static cough, then settled into its work voice. 'Morning thermal sweep shows drift in the nursery band,' it said. 'Four degrees over target and climbing by half a degree every six minutes.' Tala drew the pad toward her and scrolled with her thumb. The screen smeared under a wet print, then cleared. The humidity coils on the east run were still singing. The pump room held steady. The nursery did not. MOTE's speaker lagged one beat behind the room, and that half beat always made the system sound as if it had to drag its words through mud before it admitted anything at all. Tala set the pad down, wiped the glove on her thigh, and kept her eyes on the drip line above her left shoulder tapping the bench edge like a broken metronome. The ring could carry one stubborn mechanic for a while. It had done it before. Seventeen years had not made her gentler with bad numbers. She bent over the display, and the first line she cut from the report was the line that said the control stack still answered only to her thumbprint.