Druvak Star-Measure

Druvak Star-Measure has the look of somebody who has already counted the minutes you spent finding the door. As patrol navigation keeper at Harbor-Article Amber Desk, Druvak is the only person authorized to complete this handoff on the present watch. The clothes are practical, the personal marks culturally exact, and the eyes keep returning to the sealed object rather than the weapons on anybody's belt.

Druvak Star-Measure speaks in short working sentences. No grand speech, no mysterious nonsense. The job is a thumb-sized sealed Admiralty navigation correction wafer; the deadline is before Harbor-Article's amber patrol board rotates at third watch. The reader is ready, but local procedure has been made inconvenient by somebody with access. A cup nearby has gone cold. That is usually a better measure of the pressure than the posted fee.

The useful thing about Druvak is competence. The dangerous thing is the same competence pointed at the wrong assumption. The recipient can finish the job, but will not counterfeit custody to save the crew from a mistake. Place the unopened wafer in Druvak's physical reader before the patrol board rotates, then witness the old vector turn amber and vanish. Treat that as stubbornness if you like. The clock won't care.