Across the fence, one of Dale’s employees laughed at something.
The sound felt impossibly distant.
Eleanor continued.
“I think you remember writing a failure report in March 2017.”
“And I think you know what is happening to OBSIDIAN-7 because you described it before the satellite existed.”
Isaac looked at the folder.
Then at her.
“Who gave you my report?”
“I found it.”
“Where?”
“In a classified archive indexed incorrectly under materials qualification.”
Isaac almost smiled.
“Of course they buried it under materials.”
“You expected that?”
“I expected them to bury it somewhere no propulsion engineer would look.”
Eleanor pushed the folder toward him.
“Then maybe you should.”
Isaac did not touch it.
Not immediately.
He walked into the garage.
Poured coffee from an old machine that had been running since five.
Added nothing.
He stood beside the workbench with his back to Eleanor.
She waited.
No phone.
No impatient sigh.
No glance toward the SUVs.
Isaac noticed that too.
After almost a minute, he returned.
Opened the folder.
Page one contained telemetry.
Propellant manifold pressure.
Valve-command duty cycle.
Temperature.
Attitude correction history.
Orbital timing.
The numbers themselves were meaningless to anyone without context.
Isaac looked at the first graph.
Then the second.
His thumb stopped at a column of periodic pressure deviations.
He turned the page.
Another ninety-three-minute interval.
Then another.
His expression emptied.
He sat on a three-legged metal stool.
The stool rocked because one rubber foot had been missing since 2009.
Isaac normally hated it.
He did not notice.
“How long has that pattern been visible?”
“Six weeks.”
“When did the first anomaly begin?”
“Approximately twenty-one months after deployment.”
He looked at Eleanor.
“How long was the design mission?”
“Eight years.”
Isaac looked back at the telemetry.
“Who built the propulsion package?”
“You already know.”
“Nexora.”
“Yes.”
“Prometheus B-series?”
“Derivative.”
“Same regulator geometry?”
Eleanor hesitated.
“Mostly.”
“That means yes.”
Isaac turned to the next page.
“When do you lose operational authority?”
“Our current model says thirty-one days.”
“Current?”
“We recalculated last night.”
“What was it yesterday?”
“Forty-six.”
Isaac looked up.
“Why did it collapse fifteen days?”
“Two corrective burns used more propellant than predicted.”
Isaac stared at the numbers again.
“Where is it?”
“Two hundred forty miles altitude.”
“Polar orbit.”
“Current pass over the Indian Ocean.”
“Crewed?”
“No.”
“Payload?”
“Classified.”
“You understand I cannot help repair a system if you classify every consequence.”
Eleanor held his gaze.
“The payload is not the immediate problem.”
“Vehicle mass?”
She told him.
Isaac did the number mentally.
His jaw tightened.
“If attitude authority goes first, your deorbit control gets ugly.”
“Yes.”
“And if the regulator fragments?”
“We potentially lose propulsion completely.”
Isaac closed the folder.
“Then you already know what’s wrong.”
“We know the valve is degrading.”
“No.”
“You know the pressure is degrading.”
“That is not the same thing.”
Eleanor remained quiet.
Isaac tapped the folder.
“The thermal model I wrote in 2017 was incomplete.”
Her eyebrows lifted.
“That report predicted the failure.”