I'm not asking you to come back to Asterion. I'm asking you to help me build the thing that Asterion should have been. Caleb was quiet for a long moment. The hours would need to be fixed and protected, he said. Not flexible.
Fixed because flexible means they expand. Fixed, she said, written into the agreement. And I need to be able to say no to something I think is wrong without it affecting the arrangement. That's the whole point of having you there, she said. He looked at Garrett.
Garrett shrugged, which appeared to communicate something specific in their language. 2 days a week is not 2 days a week until it is. Garrett said, "Make sure the paper says what you mean." "The paper will say what I mean," Sloan said. "I'll have legal draft it, and you can have whoever you want review it before you sign anything." Caleb looked back at her. "Let me think about it." "Of course.
And I want to bring Howell into the protocol development," he said. "He knows the fleet better than I do at this point. It should be both of us. She nodded. Done.
He looked at the hanger around them, the familiar space, the equipment, the morning light coming in through the open bay door at the far end. His face was doing something quiet and internal that she didn't try to interpret. He had spent 14 years in this building. Whatever he was feeling, looking at it now, was his to carry. "You should eat something," he said finally, which was not what she had expected.
She blinked. "What? You look like you've been running on nothing since 6:00 this morning, he said. There's a place two blocks north that does eggs. Garrett knows it.
Garrett uncrossed his arms for the first time since she'd approached them. "Best breakfast in the district," he said, with the absolute conviction of a man who had eaten there many times and was not speaking metaphorically. Sloan looked at both of them and understood that she was being offered something that was not technically about breakfast. "Okay," she said. "Okay," Caleb said.