"Even the quietest rooms become warmer when the right people walk in."
My internal chronometer had registered the exact second my watch ended. I had been standing near the Sentry Post, having achieved a personal best for controlled stillness three hours and forty-seven minutes without a single micro-adjustment of posture. I had been a statue of disciplined granite, my joints screaming in silent protest. Every nerve in my body had been alert, my senses extended outward like taut wires.
Then, the sacred silence of the Cradle Chamber had been ruined. It hadn't been a hostile breach. No alarms blared, no red lights flashed. The Primary Airlock had opened. That engineered-for-stealth door somehow still managed to make the same ridiculous Pfffffft sound when the pressure equalized. It sounded less like a high-tech Faction safeguard and more like a disgruntled tea kettle announcing its own dissatisfaction.
"Ah, the sound of release," a voice murmured.
