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“Correct.”

She rubbed at her forehead. “How many people do?”

“Very few.”

“How few?”

I hesitated.

Her eyes narrowed. “Veyr.”

“Fewer than would make this acceptable.”

“That is not a number.”

“It is the answer you are getting.”

She exhaled.

I expected the argument.

Instead, she nodded once. “Fine.”

That surprised me.

“You accept that?”

“No. I’m choosing not to waste ten minutes trying to drag information out of you that probably won’t help me interpret the records.”

I considered that. “Efficient.”

“Don’t look pleased.”

“I am not pleased.”

“You have a face for that too.”

I ignored her.

Talia pulled the terminal closer. “What I don’t understand is what Sera’n was actually comparing.”

I looked at the reconstructed columns.

Accession dates. Archived values. Current compatibility values. Transfer histories. Identifiers.

“He may not have known what the Ghost designations represented,” I said.

“Exactly.”

Her attention sharpened.

She was no longer thinking about me. She was thinking like a laboratory technician. Following data rather than story.

I had noticed the shift before, but only now understood it fully.

Uncertainty agitated her.

A problem she could examine did the opposite.