Lemm Fair-Measure

Lemm Fair-Measure runs a narrow route desk on Khesret with three chairs, six clocks, and no decorative object that cannot also prove a shipment existed. He's Goblishili, three-foot-eight, dusk-lilac skin powdered pale around the eyes, white hair clipped close so his bronze house rings hang clear. He speaks in a calm middle register that sounds reasonable even when he is telling you somebody has ignored eleven certified packets.

He hires the crew to escort Nari Quiet-Scale to Scale Hold because neutral hulls are useful when Incentive Houses start counting each other's teeth. Lemm has a survey writ, a six-day filing window, and a destination whose sitting factor acknowledges every tax notice while somehow losing every welcome inquiry. He calls it a courtesy problem. He also pays ₡6,800 for Rank 0 work, so the courtesy is plainly sick.

Lemm's honest up to the edge. He suspects Scale Hold understates traffic, but he doesn't know whether the missing value is skim fuel, wetland resin, or clerks billing lunch twice. He knows Nari's writ could open the hold to competing desks. He does not say that first. What he does say — twice, in exactly the same pitch — is that the crew is being paid to keep a person beside her instruments until first measure is witnessed. Not to win an argument. Not to seize a dock. Just make sure the outpost cannot pretend she was never there.