Chapter 50 · Pesfavri Port

Pesfavri hit them like sound after silence.

The station loomed ahead, a crescent of light and motion orbiting a grey-green planet whose storms were visible even from orbit. Traffic lanes coiled around it like tangled string—freighters, passenger liners, bulk haulers, all cutting across one another with the reckless coordination of those who survived on habit more than regulation.

The Mynock threaded into the pattern, her hull groaning at the proximity alarms. Voices filled the comm: overlapping languages, half of them angry. Eli muted the channel before the static could start giving him a migraine.

“Docking clearance received,” Stent said. “Head to sector four.”

The Mynock joined the queue, sliding between a Corellian freighter that looked like it had been welded together by committee and a refueling barge leaking something bright and possibly alive. The ship’s proximity sensors squealed in protest.

“Welcome back to civilization,” Eli muttered. “Smells like profit and bad decisions.”

Stent was frowning at one of the auxiliary screens. “Have you seen the docking fees?”

Eli glanced over—and winced. “That can’t be right.”

“It is,” Stent said flatly. “Rates have tripled since our last records.”

“They’re charging by tonnage and air volume now?” Eli scrolled through the breakdown. “Even the Mynock doesn’t breathe that much.”

Nora, perched between their seats on the upturned bucket, leaned forward to see the display. “New management,” she said, her tone flat but knowing. “The Empire’s been consolidating the trade ports out this way. Pesfavri used to be independent. Now it’s ‘Empire-adjacent.’”

Eli arched a brow. “That’s a fancy way to say they sold out.”

“They didn’t have a choice,” Nora said. “Imperials showed up with a destroyer two months ago. Negotiations went about as well as you’d expect.”

“Which means higher fees, stricter customs, and a bureaucracy that eats its own paperwork,” Eli muttered.

Stent’s eyes flicked toward her. “How do you know this?”

She shrugged. “I read things. And people talk when you spend your life fixing their ships.”

Eli leaned back in his chair. “So, a refueling station with delusions of order.”

“Delusions are the cheapest thing they sell here,” Nora said.

Eli snorted. “First they clean up the pirates, then they start charging protection money.”

“Standard Imperial progression,” Stent said. “Replace chaos with control, and profit from both.”

Eli keyed in the authorization anyway, watching the transaction drain their account. “Feels like the kind of order that’s bad for business.”

“Only if you care about fairness,” Nora said.

“Luckily,” Eli said, “we’re traders.”

The Mynock slipped into its assigned vector, angling toward the ring of ships waiting their turn to dock. The comm crackled again—another impatient controller demanding verification codes, a dozen languages tripping over one another. Eli muted the channel before they could hear the insult.

Outside the viewport, Pesfavri bloomed like an overripe fruit—bright lights, layers of motion, and the unmistakable chaos of too many lives pressed into too little space.

“Docking confirmed,” Stent said. “Berth forty-seven.”

Nora leaned back on the bucket, folding her arms. “Berth forty-seven’s in the commercial ring. Crowded, noisy, full of smugglers who pretend to be honest. You’ll fit right in.”

Eli smiled faintly. “Finally, some hospitality.”

The Mynock slipped into the berth queue, one tired ship among hundreds. The docking lanes were so thick with traffic that it looked like a slow-motion collision waiting to happen. Cargo tugs darted between haulers like insects, their guidance lights flashing frantic green. The air crackled with static and shouted orders.

Eli gripped the controls, half for reassurance, half for balance. “Docking control’s supposed to coordinate this mess, right?”

“They do,” Nora said, still seated on her bucket perch, bracing herself with a hand against the console as the Mynock shuddered. “But it’s more of a suggestion than a system. The Imperials handle the big ships. Everyone else just yells louder.”

“Sounds efficient,” Eli said.

“That word keeps losing meaning around you,” Stent replied dryly.

Eli grinned. “Then I’m making progress.”

The Mynock slotted into its assigned corridor at last, thrusters whining in protest. A tractor beam caught the ship’s belly, pulling them the rest of the way. The hull groaned as the clamps latched on—two beats too late, with the grace of an exhausted dockworker.

The boarding tunnel extended with a hydraulic hiss. A voice came through the comm—bored, nasal, professional indifference distilled into sound.

“Vessel Mynock, registry verified. Prepare for customs inspection. Declare all cargo and passengers.”

Eli toggled the mic. “Acknowledged. Just cloth and conversation, promise.”

The voice didn’t reply. The channel clicked off with the abruptness of someone who’d stopped caring years ago.

The pressure equalized with a sigh, and the outer hatch opened to the familiar chaos of a port that had outgrown its sense of proportion. The dock stretched into a canyon of metal and light—ships stacked three high, droids weaving between crates, the air thick with the hiss of fuel lines and shouted instructions in half a dozen languages.

The customs office sat just ahead: a metal booth half-eclipsed by a flickering holo of the Imperial crest. The officer behind the desk looked as though he’d been printed from a template: uniform rumpled, hair thinning, datapad in one hand, stylus in the other.

“Name of vessel,” he droned without looking up.

Eli stepped forward with the easy smile of a man who’d lied to worse bureaucrats. “Mynock, independent trader.”

“Registry?”

“Outer Rim, non-affiliated.”

The officer glanced up, one eyebrow twitching. “Cargo?”

“Bolts of cloth,” Eli said. “Textiles from the Ascendancy frontier. Excellent durability. Breathes well in most atmospheres.”

“Inspection required.”

“Of course,” Eli said pleasantly. “Wouldn’t want to deprive you of the experience.”

The officer sighed, pushed himself up from his chair, and leaned toward the viewport of the Mynock’s open hatch. He took one look inside—at the narrow corridor, the exposed wiring, the bunks, the living area—and wrinkled his nose.

“Small,” he said. “Cramped.”

Eli smiled pleasantly. “Efficient.”

The officer grunted. “Send the droid.”

A loader unit trundled forward, mechanical eyes flickering as it squeezed through the hatch. Stent followed it inside, silent and watchful, his presence filling the space in a way the droid’s metal bulk couldn’t. The inspection took less than a minute—one quick scan, one perfunctory beep from the droid as it backed out again.

“Cargo cleared,” it reported.

The officer entered something into his datapad. “Docking fee. Environmental surcharge. Customs tax. Processing fee. That’ll be one hundred and twenty-six credits.”

Eli blinked. “That’s new math. It was thirty last time.”

“Adjustment for Imperial oversight.”

“Of course,” Eli said, sliding the credit chip across the counter. “May the Emperor’s efficiency shine forever.”

Behind him, Stent said nothing, but his posture alone made the officer glance down quickly and finalize the transaction. The datapad beeped once.

“Welcome to Pesfavri,” the man said, still not looking up.

They stepped back into the dock. Nora stood just outside the hatch, her pack slung over her shoulder, the weight of decision in her stance.

“Well,” she said. “Guess this is where I get off.”

Eli nodded slowly. “You will be fine?”

“I’ve got people here,” she said. “Or at least, I used to. Someone’ll know a mechanic with my record.”

He smiled faintly. “Just make sure they’re paying in advance.”

“I learned that one already.”

She turned to Stent, who regarded her with the faintly formal distance he reserved for everyone not wearing a CEDF badge. “Thanks for the lift,” she said.

“Efficiency is its own reward,” Stent replied.

Nora chuckled. “You ever relax, Captain?”

“I am relaxed,” Stent said, which somehow made her laugh harder.

Eli watched her go. She merged with the current of travelers, her small figure vanishing among the crowds and neon light. He waited until she was gone, then exhaled.

“Back to two,” Eli said quietly.

Stent glanced toward the traffic lanes outside. “The natural configuration.”

“Efficient,” Eli said.

“Precisely.”

Stent paused then, as if debating whether to add something. His tone, when it came, was smooth as ever—but the pause had teeth.

“It is preferable,” he said, “that shipboard relations remain compartmentalized. The Mynock’s paneling systems are not rated for... distraction.”

Eli blinked, half a laugh caught in his throat. “You’ve been sitting on that line for four days, haven’t you?”

“I sit on nothing,” Stent said primly. “I observe.”

Eli shook his head, smiling despite himself. “Remind me to never underestimate your memory again.”

“Consider it remembered,” Stent replied, already turning toward the hatch controls.

The conversation ended there, but the faint upward twitch at the corner of his mouth lingered—a Chiss approximation of victory.

The port’s trade quarter was a canyon of light and shouting.
Rows of stalls stretched along the concourse, the air a storm of color and language. Vendors barked prices into the noise; holo-signs flickered half-dead promises of bargains no one intended to honor. The smell was part metal, part spice, and entirely desperate.

Eli had missed it.

He moved through the crowd with a kind of ease that surprised even him, the rhythm of a man who’d once known how to disappear in plain sight. Stent followed a step behind, posture upright, gaze cataloguing every motion, every deal, every potential threat. To most onlookers, they probably looked like partners—or more accurately, a charming negotiator and his very expensive bodyguard.

They reached a stall stacked with folded bolts of fabric, neutral tones woven with fine sheen. The merchant, a Sullustan with soot-black hands, looked up and squinted. “Selling or buying?”

Eli dropped the canvas bag onto the counter. “Both, if we’re lucky.”

The Sullustan’s ears twitched. He unrolled a length of Chiss cloth and held it up to the light. “Nice weave. Not Imperial. Foreign make.”

“Ascendancy,” Eli said smoothly. “Pre-border trade surplus. Breathable in heat, insulates in cold. You’ll sell out before the next rotation.”

“Or be arrested for buying it.”

“That depends on your clientele,” Eli said, leaning casually against the stall. “You strike me as someone with... flexible ethics.”

The merchant snorted. “And you strike me as someone trying to sound like a professional trader.”

Eli’s grin widened. “How am I doing?”

“Not terrible,” the merchant said, and named a price so low it might have been an insult.

Stent didn’t sigh, but the movement of his eyes said he wanted to. Eli countered with a figure that made the Sullustan laugh aloud, and then the dance began—offer, refusal, counter, insult, joke. Fifteen minutes later, they had an agreement that left both men feeling slightly cheated, which meant it was probably fair.

Eli watched the payment confirmation appear on his datapad and handed half the credits to Stent without comment.

“Acceptable,” Stent said. His questis flickered as he noted the transaction. “Profit margin: seventeen percent.”

“You could at least pretend to enjoy the art of it,” Eli said.

“The art of haggling is inefficiency disguised as performance.”

“That’s called commerce.”

“It’s called chaos.”

Eli chuckled. “Then welcome to the market.”

For the rest of the afternoon they played the part: two independent traders with modest ambition and poor taste in ships. They moved from stall to stall, selling a few bolts of cloth here, bartering for the repair components from the list Nora had left them there. Her notes were precise and irritatingly sensible—each item sorted by urgency, structural risk, and mild aesthetic shame.

Eli read the list aloud as they walked. “ ‘Replace hull sealant, port side. Recalibrate nav sensor array. Reinforce coupling three on water recycler.’ ” He snorted. “She even graded us on cleanliness. Look at this—‘galley lighting: non-essential but depressing.’ ”

“Her assessment is accurate,” Stent said.

“Don’t get used to agreeing with her,” Eli said. “You’ll start sounding human.”

By the time the station lights dimmed for shift change, they’d restocked the Mynock with food rations, hull patches, coolant lines, and a replacement water filter that might actually last longer than a week. The air recyclers would breathe easier; the ship might even stop complaining audibly in hyperspace.

Eli also picked up two new datapads from a backroom vendor whose sign read NO QUESTIONS, NO RETURNS. He tested both, then slid them into his bag. His old datapad—the military-issue one—would stay aboard the ship now, alongside Stent’s unmistakable questis. Too much Imperial tech drew the wrong kind of curiosity, even if patched and outdated.

As they left the market concourse, Eli looked over the dwindling list in his hand. “We could get a sonic, you know,” he said. “Small model, fits into the cubicle. We’d finally be rid of the bucket.”

“Unnecessary,” Stent said immediately.

“Necessary for morale,” Eli countered. “You ever tried washing your hair with half a cup of water and a cloth?”

“I do not have your hair.”

“Still, it’s a step up from freezing your fingers off every morning.”

Stent gave him a side glance. “A sonic shower will increase our water usage by forty percent.”

Eli grinned. “Not if we count it as reallocation. The new recycler can handle it, remember? Thanks to Nora, we’re no longer one plumbing mishap away from dehydration.”

“That is not a justification for indulgence.”

“It’s hygiene.”

“It is wasteful.”

Eli sighed. “Fine. I’ll buy it with my own money.”

Stent’s head turned. “Your what?”

“My share,” Eli said. “You know, the part of the profits that’s supposed to keep me from mutinying.”

Stent blinked once, slowly. “You do not have an official percentage.”

“Guess that means I’m overdue,” Eli said, pocketing his datapad.

The Chiss’s expression didn’t shift, but after a moment he inclined his head slightly. “Very well. If you wish to waste your compensation on a sonic, I will not intervene.”

“Finally, progress,” Eli said, already scrolling through a catalog. “And maybe a new heater coil for the galley. I’m tired of warm rations pretending to be food.”

He was still talking as they passed into the main corridor, the noise of the station fading to a low hum behind them. “Actually,” Eli said, “there’s a thought. Bathhouse. Real water, actual heat, clean towels. It’s probably the last civilized thing we’ll see for months.”

Stent stopped walking. “No.”

“Come on—”

“The prices here are already extortionate,” Stent said. “Indulgence is inefficient.”

“It’s not indulgence. It’s repair work. For the soul.”

“Your soul is not my maintenance concern.”

Eli laughed. “Then at least let me feed mine. There’s got to be a decent meal somewhere in this tin maze.”

Stent hesitated. “Food is acceptable.”

“Great,” Eli said, grinning. “I’ll settle for protein that hasn’t been reconstituted twice.”

They turned down a side corridor lit by the station’s softer evening glow, the crowd thinning into silhouettes against the haze of signs. Somewhere nearby, someone was frying something that actually smelled edible.

“See?” Eli said. “Civilization’s not all bad.”

Stent didn’t reply, but he didn’t steer them away either. That counted as consent in Chiss terms.

The meal turned out better than expected.

They found a corner table in a small canteen that smelled of oil, fried noodles, and ambition. The food was simple—protein stew, flatbread, a side of something pretending to be vegetables—but it was warm, and it didn’t come out of a ration tube. Eli nearly declared it the best meal he’d had in a year, which, statistically, wasn’t wrong.

Stent ate with the deliberate precision of a man who didn’t quite trust the concept of restaurants. He finished first, folded his napkin with military symmetry, and waited while Eli ordered a second helping to go.

When the containers arrived, Eli packed them neatly into a small bag and smiled. “Insurance,” he said.

“Against starvation?” Stent asked.

“Against suspicion,” Eli replied. “Two harmless traders, walking around with dinner in hand. Nobody ever thinks people carrying leftovers are plotting anything serious.”

“It is a poor disguise.”

“It’s an honest one.”

“Which is poorer.”

Eli grinned. “Exactly why it works.”

The comm-vault smelled faintly of burnt circuits and old promises. Rows of terminals lined the walls, their screens buzzing with static and light. A maintenance droid at the entrance recited the usual script about “secure communications for independent merchants,” its voice bored enough to be almost convincing.

Eli signed them in under a trader’s code, left over from the Ascendancy border market. The droid waved them through.

They chose two empty terminals at the far end of the chamber—old, flickering, comfortably ignored. Stent plugged his questis into the console, layering his own encryption over the port’s tired Imperial software. Blue text spilled across the screen in sharp Chiss glyphs: timestamps, routing codes, transmission trails.

Eli unwrapped his noodles, setting them on the edge of the console. “Now it looks like we belong here.”

“You are eating near a live terminal,” Stent said.

“I’m living dangerously.”

Stent didn’t dignify that with a response. His eyes stayed fixed on the data stream. “Two relay identifiers located,” he said quietly. “One within the Ascendancy network. The other—altered.”

Eli leaned over. “Altered how?”

“Non-standard access headers. See here—incorrect checksum sequences, inconsistent compression.”

Eli frowned. “Corrupted?”

“Tampered.”

He said the word with care, like testing a weapon’s edge. He didn’t explain further. He didn’t have to.

The pattern was wrong in a way only he would recognize. The sort of precision that didn’t come from damage or decay, but from deliberate interference. Layers of code folded over each other, recursive loops designed to mimic failure. Elegant, patient sabotage.

He’d seen it before—once—on the edge of Chiss space, during an operation that had left too many ships silent. The signature was the same: alien logic disguised as entropy.

Grysk work.

He kept his expression neutral, even as the recognition lodged cold behind his eyes. He would not give that word breath. Not here. Not where it could be overheard.

Eli, oblivious to the thought, was already slicing through the second relay on his datapad. The system was slow, outdated, almost charming in its fragility. After a few careful reroutes, he exhaled. “Got it. Logs, coordinates, timestamps. Look familiar?”

“Yes,” Stent said. “The signal passed through here. Origin remains undetermined.”

“So, not local,” Eli murmured. “It came from somewhere further out.”

“Rimward,” Stent confirmed.

Eli leaned back. “So we’re chasing an echo.”

“Perhaps,” Stent said. “Or a trail.”

A soft tone cut through the vault’s hum—sharp, electronic. Both men froze. It wasn’t loud, but it carried intent.

Eli’s datapad flashed: UNIDENTIFIED TRACE REQUEST DETECTED.

He severed the connection instantly. “Someone just tried to handshake our line.”

“Source?”

“Same subnet. Local.”

The two of them shared a look. Stent closed his questis, the blue light winking out, and rose smoothly from his chair.

Eli gathered the food container, tucking it under his arm. “Let’s go for a walk before we start another conversation we can’t finish.”

“Agreed,” Stent said.

The corridor outside was a flood of sound and motion—traders, loaders, porters, all moving fast enough to look busy but slow enough to listen. The smell of coolant and fried starch hung in the air.

They blended into the current, walking side by side.

“Anyone on us?” Eli murmured.

“Yes,” Stent said, eyes steady ahead. “Three degrees left. Approximately fifteen meters.”

“Tall?”

“Broad-shouldered. Concealed weapon under the coat.”

Eli’s smile was light and false. “Can’t wait to make friends.”

“Not here.”

“Right,” Eli said, nodding toward a branching maintenance corridor. “This way.”

They slipped into the side passage, footsteps echoing against the metal. The sound of the crowd faded behind them. The corridor bent once, twice—then went quiet.

Eli stopped halfway down and turned slightly, his reflection catching in the dull steel. “Still behind us?”

“Yes,” Stent said.

“Let’s see if he wants to talk.”

They both turned.

The figure stepped into view at the corridor’s mouth, the light behind him too bright to see his face—just the outline of a long coat and the gleam of metal at his belt.

He didn’t speak. Neither did they. The air between them felt sharp enough to cut.

The figure at the end of the corridor didn’t move.

The light behind them turned the outline into a black cutout—short, slight, wrapped in a travel cloak that brushed the floor. Gloved hands hung at their sides, too still. The respirator mask caught the light in twin dull reflections.

Eli took a slow step forward. “You lost, friend?”

No answer. The figure’s breathing rasped faintly through the mask—mechanical, even, the sound of measured patience.

Stent shifted his stance, the way he did when calculation became reflex. “Remain where you are,” he said quietly. It wasn’t a threat. It was an instruction.

The figure tilted their head slightly, as if curious.

Eli caught the movement of one hand—the faintest twitch, gloved fingers curling inward, then back. A signal? A reflex? Hard to tell.

He raised a hand, palm out. “Look, we’re not selling anything you want. Cloth, coolant, old ration packs. You picked the wrong traders.”

The figure finally moved—just one slow step forward. The air recyclers hummed in the ceiling. The sound of the port beyond was gone, swallowed by the walls. Only the faint rhythmic breath of the mask filled the space.

Stent’s voice dropped to something precise and quiet. “Left hand,” he murmured. “Weapon holster. Not drawn yet.”

“Yeah,” Eli said under his breath. “I see it.”

He shifted slightly to the side, angling them so the narrow light strip didn’t silhouette both their bodies. “You got something to say,” he called, “now’s the time.”

The mask hissed once—a faint intake—and then a voice emerged, distorted by the filter, speaking Sy Bisti. “You shouldn’t be here.”

Eli blinked. “That narrows it down to about five million people.”

The figure shook their head. “You’re not traders.”

“Everyone’s a trader on Pesfavri,” Eli said, keeping his tone light. “We just sell boring things.”

The mask tilted slightly toward Stent. “Not him.”

That single phrase turned the air colder. Stent didn’t move, but his stillness became absolute—command carved into posture. “Explain,” he said, the word quiet enough to cut.

The figure’s breathing quickened, then steadied. When they finally spoke again, their voice carried a strange finality, as if quoting something they barely understood.

“The ones you follow,” the figure said. “They’re gone.”

Eli frowned. “The ones we—what?”

No reply.

The figure took a step back, their outline dissolving in the glare from the junction lights. Then another step, then gone—swallowed by the crowd noise bleeding in from the open corridor beyond.

Eli started after them, but Stent’s hand clamped on his arm.

“Don’t.”

“She knew something.”

“She said too much.”

Eli stared down the empty passage. “ ‘The ones we follow,’ ” he repeated under his breath. “Who the hell are they? The Seventh? The Chiss? Someone else?”

Stent’s expression didn’t change, but a faint tremor crossed the muscle at his jaw. “All possibilities are troubling,” he said.

“Yeah,” Eli said. “That’s why I asked.”

They made their way back to the main concourse, the noise and motion of the port swallowing the last trace of that moment. The hum of people and machines was almost comforting after the silence of the corridor. Almost.

Stent adjusted the collar of his coat, voice low. “We leave tonight.”

Eli nodded. “Fine by me.”

He looked back once, toward the corridor where the light still flickered against the far wall. The crowd had already reclaimed it. Whatever that thing—whoever—it was, it had vanished into Pesfavri like a drop in an ocean.

But the echo of its voice followed them all the way back to the ship.

The Mynock hummed around them, half-grateful to be leaving Pesfavri behind.

Eli was still in the fresher, half-submerged in steam and regret.

The new sonic unit sat in the cubicle wall, blinking smugly. Its installation manual glowed on his datapad, full of diagrams that looked like they’d been drawn by an optimistic sadist. The captions alternated between “Step 3A: Rotate conduit assembly clockwise,” and “If alarm persists, contact certified technician.”

He sighed. “Nora would’ve done this in five minutes.”

From the corridor, Stent’s voice carried evenly. “We do not have Nora.”

“Thanks for the reminder,” Eli muttered. He tried another setting. The device beeped, sputtered, and then emitted a high-pitched hum that rattled his teeth. “That’s not encouraging.”

“Maybe you have connected the intake line to the output manifold,” Stent called.

“I’m following the manual.”

“Incorrectly.”

Eli shut it off before it could explode, wiped condensation from his face, and leaned against the bulkhead. “Plumbing’s not my thing.”

“So it appears.”

“I’ll get it working,” Eli said. “Eventually.”

“Doubtless,” Stent said, but there was something almost kind in the dryness.

He emerged ten minutes later with damp hair and mild resentment. Stent was in the cockpit, surrounded by data projections—lines of numbers, fragments of coordinates, and the faint blue of navigation overlays. The ship’s hum filled the quiet, the steady rhythm of something doing its best to hold together.

Eli slid into the co-pilot’s chair. “What’ve we got?”

Stent didn’t look away from the screen. “I have collated the buoy fragments. The routing signatures form a chain—each link consistent with the previous relay, excluding the corrupted data.”

“Let me guess,” Eli said, rubbing a towel over his hair. “The breadcrumbs lead somewhere unpleasant.”

“Imperial space,” Stent confirmed. He expanded the projection—tiny blue lights mapping a curve through the stars, fading into the galactic rim. “The signal transited through multiple civilian networks, then entered a classified Imperial relay corridor. No record of origin remains.”

Eli leaned closer, watching the map rotate. “So it wasn’t sent from the Unknown Regions.”

“No,” Stent said. “It was merely passing through them.”

Eli sat back, whistling softly. “So whoever sent it, they weren’t trying to reach us.”

“Correct.”

“Then we’ve been chasing someone else’s mail.”

Stent closed his hands behind his back, considering the display. “Possibly. But if the message contained data intended for Ascendancy channels, it may have been relayed intentionally—by an intermediary.”

Eli frowned. “Which means there’s someone still moving it along.”

“Yes.”

“And whoever they are, they’re ahead of us.”

The Mynock shuddered slightly as the hyperdrive spooled up, the stars beginning to blur. Eli looked at the blue streaks forming across the viewport, then back at Stent. “Whatever’s waiting at the end of that trail, it’s not going to thank us for showing up.”

Stent’s gaze remained on the stars. “Then we are properly prepared.”

Eli smiled faintly. “You really think we are?”

“I think preparation is preferable to surprise.”

The sonic unit in the fresher chose that moment to emit a distant ping—a mechanical complaint that echoed faintly through the hull.

Eli groaned. “That’s my cue to regret optimism.”

Stent didn’t look up. “Optimism is a limited resource.”

“Yeah,” Eli said. “And I just wasted mine on plumbing.”