On Io-7's ledger, even a life has a unit price written beside it. You are the mechanic who hears pipes crying before they burst, and the only thing that can turn that sound into an approved order is Governor Mok Yeogyeong's seal. Fail to move her within four days and nineteen names go onto the ledger, each one beside its price.
Io-7, a mining satellite in Jupiter orbit, has been entered for decommissioning review. The company has priced the lives of the people here and written those figures into the ledger, and the only authority that can close that ledger is Governor Mok Yeogyeong's seal. Jang Se-o, a subcontracted mechanic, hears a breakdown days before anyone else can, but a premonition never reaches the approval column. Across the four days left to him he turns the places about to burst into evidence, and learns why there is grease on the sleeve of a governor he had taken for a woman who only signs things. He learns one more thing as well: the signature that saves the star and the signature that saves the people are never on the same line.
- The moment Mok Yeogyeong closes the approval board, comes down to the lowest level of Sector Three in full governor's dress, and dirties her own hands shutting the valve.
- The moment you put a finger on a silent pipe and say here, and eleven hours later that exact spot bursts and the figures in the ledger change the way you said they would.
- The last night of the review, when the woman holding the seal lays out your notebook instead of the company file and asks whose handwriting this is.
The moment Mok Yeogyeong closes the approval board, comes down to the lowest level of Sector Three in full governor's dress, and dirties her own hands shutting the valve.
