Page 18 of Ward

“Forms exist because people make mistakes in good faith.”

“And people exist because forms don’t feed anybody.”

They looked at each other across a hand truck of greens.

She was arguing with a Dalgurian guard on a freight dock at the third bell while a crate of pea shoots wilted. She was enjoying it more than any argument she'd had in years.

He was the one who moved. Not away. He unclipped the scanner from his belt and stepped past her to the first crate.

“What are you doing?”

“Screening it.” He ran the wand down the slats, read the display, and moved on. “You’ve told me it’s clean. I’d prefer to know.”

“That’s—” She stopped, because what it was, actually, was the thing she would have done. Trust the person; check the food. Every good kitchen she’d ever worked in ran that way.

Crate two. Crate three. Pell, recovered from the hinge, watched with open curiosity.

At the fourth crate he paused longer, and frowned, but not at the greens. He was looking past them, at the wall of sealed freight from the morning descent, Bridge-stamped and official.

“What?” she said.

“Your crates weigh what they say they weigh.” He said it quietly, mostly to himself. “That’s more than I can say for a third of what’s come across this dock this week with paperwork attached.” He clipped the scanner back on. “They’re clean.”

“I told you they were clean.”

“Now I know.”

And then — this was the part she’d replay — he bent and picked up the stack. All four crates, like they were empty.

“Hey. I have a truck.”

“Your truck has a bad wheel.” It did. It had had a bad wheel since spring. “Screened cargo is the responsibility of the screening officer until it clears the dock. That’s also section twelve.”

“It is not.”

“You’re welcome to read it.”

She was not going to read it, and they both knew it, and something in his voice that wasn’t quite a smile told her he knew that she knew. She handed Pell the bread, said goodbye the Andovi way, palm to forehead, and went after him.

He carried the crates the whole length of the commons to her kitchen door, set them down square inside it where Renn would find them, and turned to go without a word.

“You’re not going to report it,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

He considered. “I’m going to report that the delegation’s freight cleared inspection. I’m not going to report the greens. They’re better than the official ones.”

“That’s what I said.”

“You said it louder.”

She laughed, surprised into it, a real one, and he looked at her for a second like a man who had set off something he hadn’t known was armed. Then he went.

“Thanks, Eric,” she called after him.

“Aldric.”

“Got it.”

She stood in the doorway with four crates of greens she hadn’t had to carry. She’d been wrong about him. Not about the rules; she’d trade with Pell until the station fell out of orbit. About the rest. She’d had him filed as a man who checked everything because he didn’t trust anybody. He was a man who checked everything because he couldn’t stand the thought of somebody getting hurt on his watch.