The World Watched; I Salvaged Scrap

compiler.” Lin watched the inspection cutter approach. “What’s it worth?” “No valid valuation exists in the local economy.” “Can it fix my boat?” Lan-Zero paused, perhaps startled by the poverty of its new captain. “Yes.” Inspectors searched the *White Heron*. Spectrometers, radiation meters, even dogs found nothing except an ordinary corroded steel plate. No one noticed the faint blue ring newly traced across Lin’s palm. Only after a tug escorted them out of the exclusion zone did Lan-Zero speak again. “Provisional captain, a matter is more urgent than your poverty.” “Go on.” A chart of Earth unfolded across Lin’s vision. Six dark-red points appeared: the Mariana, Tonga, South Sandwich, and Java trenches, the Mid-Atlantic fracture, and the