About
Holds the technical question at the centre of the whole Palisade search: whether a hull can be sent, and whether a route out to that geometry can be certified. She would not come up, so the Director came down four flights to her. A search figure has two things in it, a volume and a rate, and Earth has only the rate. The volume is the ship's own: a light-day across in her best direction and three or four in her worst.
Holds the technical question at the centre of the whole Palisade search: whether a hull can be sent, and whether a route out to that geometry can be certified. She would not come up, so the Director came down four flights to her. She names, unprompted, that somebody more senior will certify it and that Falade should not take it: "I'm not putting a certificate on any of those three, and neither is anybody else on this floor, and if you go over my head you'll find somebody who will and you shouldn't take it."