“Six weeks ago. A ship called Tell Me Another One experienced a Flow anomaly and then recorded a transient Flow shoal, consistent with my model. It’s observed, recorded, verified, and tracked. Everything about it fits. Everything about it is exactly what we’ve been looking for. It confirms everything we’ve suspected about the Flow.”

Marce stopped trying to scan the work, which would require hours for him to read and ingest, and looked to his father. “You’re sure about this.”

“Do you think I would tell you if I wasn’t?” Jamies said. “Have you ever known me to be anything other than exceptionally careful about this hypothesis? Do you think I didn’t throw everything I could at it to disprove it? Do you think I want it to be accurate?”

Marce shook his head. “No, Dad.”

“Don’t get me wrong, Marce. I need you to read it. I need you to tell me if there’s anything I’m missing. Anything I’ve overlooked. Because as much as the scientist in me is thrilled to have made this leap in understanding the physics of the Flow…”

“… as a human being you want to be wrong,” Marce finished.

“Yes,” Jamies said. “Yes, I very much do.”

For as long as Marce could remember, Dad had called it “the Family Secret”: his father’s examination of navigation data from every ship that had ever come to End over the last four decades. Officially Count Claremont’s role for the empire was chief imperial auditor for End. He examined the data to assure that none of the ships ever deviated from the imperially approved trade route—and thereby avoided the trade tariffs and other taxes that were required of them—that were often planned years or even decades in advance. In this, the count was one of dozens of chief imperial auditors, one in every system, who made sure money stayed where it was supposed to stay: in the pocket of the emperox first, guilds second, and everyone else somewhere rather further down the line.