“I’m not a kid!” He heaved a hand up to point at the ceiling over my chair. “See! Friction’s stopped!”
Had it been thirty-five seconds? The ceiling over me kept its steady squiggle. “Good work, Tove,” I said.
“I’m not here because of my dad,” Tove said.
Oh, boy. “Of course you’re not.” I thought carefully. “You fixed things so quickly, I just thought you were a senior engineer, that’s all.”
“s’nobody else,” Tove said. “Something fried the engineering datacore.”
“Isn’t that scattered throughout the Ring?” I said.
“Supposed to!” He issued instructions in French, and the overhead displays swooped into a new configuration. These readouts had a lot more red. “I’m trying reset but no.”
Red spots flashed on the ceiling.
“Dad said datacore can’t fail,” Tove said, his voice just a little pa
