Broken wax came off the pay card under Marn's thumb and exposed the stamped surname Vesk.
The first name had been hidden beneath his oldest shift box. He scraped the wax away with the edge of his wall ring until all four letters returned. The clerk had stamped a landing number across the M and covered the rest when the first shift went unpaid, leaving Marn to carry nine days of wax over his own name.
Ruvan waited across the crossing table with a public tally strip under one hand.
"Give the crossing table the name hidden under that wax."
"Marn Vesk, seventh freight landing, with nine shifts unpaid."
Ruvan wrote the name, work, and damaged claim before the lower current pulled another inch of table toward the west wall.
Beside Marn, Todd loosened Nana's red cord from the returned capsule staff. The brass seven mark stayed beneath the knot. A black cloth fiber had caught below it, pressed into the groove made by the wooden Cross Link stair.
