Ampelos brought the emergency maritime protocol draft at the second hour of the next morning.

Two pages. Dense, specific, the language of someone who had been writing operational documents for decades and understood that the difference between a protocol that worked and one that did not was almost always in the specificity of the trigger conditions.

Lysander read it at his table while the lamp was still doing most of the work.

The trigger was clear: any coastline reaching ninety percent of documented absorption capacity activated an automatic request to the other two parties for maritime transport assistance. The response timeline was forty-eight hours for acknowledgment, seventy-two for first vessel deployment. The cost allocation was proportional to the receiving party’s current buffer position — the party with the most remaining capacity contributed more.

’Proportional to buffer position,’ he thought. ’Which means the party under the most stress receives the most help. Which means the arrangement is genuinely mutual rather than theoretically mutual.’

’Agamemnon offered Caria protection from conflict. We are offering something different — a network that carries more weight the heavier the load becomes.’

’He offered shelter from the storm. We built something that gets stronger in the storm.’

’The distinction matters. I hope it matters enough.’

He made two small adjustments to the trigger language — clarifications, not changes — and sent the document back to Ampelos with a note: send to Sarpedon and Adrastos before their ships leave.

________________________________________

He went to Daidalos at the third hour.

The workshop smelled the same as it always smelled — wood shavings, tar, the unnamed compound in the hull treatment. The third-design model was still on the long table. Daidalos was not at the model. He was at the side table with the construction ledgers, doing the arithmetic Lysander had known he would be doing since the night Fylon brought the Thracian news.

He looked up when Lysander came in.

He said: "The Thracian supply."

"Yes."

"How long do we have with what is in the yard."

"Fourteen weeks at current construction pace. Less if we accelerate."

"And the six vessels under construction."

"Three can be completed within the fourteen weeks. Three cannot."

"The three that cannot."

"Hulls laid, framing begun. Without the northern timber, they stop where they are."

Lysander sat on the stool beside the work table. He looked at the construction ledgers — the careful columns of materials and quantities and timelines that Daidalos kept with the precision of someone who understood that a ship that failed because of a miscalculation in the planning stage was more expensive than the planning stage itself.

’Fourteen weeks,’ he thought. ’And then three vessels that cannot be completed. Which means the fleet capacity that Hector calculated into his two-year estimate is now reduced by three vessels from the beginning.’

’And the two-year estimate was already the optimistic version.’

"Alternatives," Lysander said. "Timber sources."

"I have been thinking about this since last night." Daidalos turned to a different ledger — one Lysander had not seen before, the kind that had been started recently and had not been shown yet. "Three options. The first: the Carian timber contacts. Adrastos is here. If Caria has timber suppliers in the southern Anatolian inland — which they do, I know they do from the construction correspondence — we can redirect the sourcing. Different timber variety, different characteristics. I would need to adjust the hull treatment compound and possibly the frame jointing. Two to three months of testing before I would be confident in the structural integrity."

"Two to three months of testing adds two to three months to the timeline."

"Yes."

"The second option."

"The settlement shipwright. He has been working with me for three weeks. He knows timber varieties in the eastern coastal region that I have not worked with. Some of them have structural properties comparable to the Thracian northern pine. The question is sourcing — whether those varieties can be reached in sufficient volume given the displacement of the communities that used to harvest them."

’The displacement of the communities,’ Lysander thought. ’The same displacement we have been managing on the beach is also why the timber supply is disrupted. It is all the same problem from different angles.’

"The third option."

"The hardest one. Reduce construction pace on the three incomplete vessels, maintain pace on current work, and build the remaining capacity differently — smaller vessels, different design, using the timber varieties we can source now rather than waiting for the northern supply to be replaced."

"Smaller vessels."

"Less efficient per voyage. More numerous. Potentially more flexible in the shallow harbor approaches — which, given the emergency maritime protocol you are apparently drafting, might not be a disadvantage."

Lysander looked at him.

’He knows about the protocol,’ he thought. ’Of course he does. Daidalos does not miss things that affect the construction program. He probably knew about the Thracian situation before Fylon told me.’

"Which option do you recommend," Lysander said.

"All three, in sequence. Talk to Adrastos today — before he leaves — about the Carian timber suppliers. Work the settlement shipwright on the eastern varieties while the Carian testing runs. And begin the smaller vessel design adaptation now, so we have it ready if the other two options do not produce results fast enough."

"All three simultaneously."

"The problem is simultaneous. The response should be simultaneous."

’He is right,’ Lysander thought. ’He is completely right and I knew he would be and that is why I came here first rather than to Ampelos.’

"Yes," he said. "Do it."

He stood.

"Adrastos leaves at the midday tide," he said. "I will bring him here before his ship departs."

"Good." Daidalos was already opening the design ledger. "The smaller vessel adaptation. I have been thinking about it since the third hour."

’Of course he has,’ Lysander thought, walking out into the harbor morning.

________________________________________

He found Adrastos at the harbor guest quarters, overseeing the loading of his traveling cases.

The conversation took twenty minutes. Daidalos had been correct — Caria had inland timber suppliers in the southern Anatolian region, the legacy of the construction work that the king’s five-year restructuring program had developed. Adrastos knew the suppliers by name. He wrote three names on a tablet and gave it to Lysander without being asked to.

He said: "My king has been anticipating this."

"Anticipating what specifically."

"That the timber supply for the coastal fleet would become a pressure point. The Thracian routes were always the vulnerability — too far north, too dependent on a single corridor." He looked at the harbor. "He wrote to me two weeks ago. He said: if Agamemnon moves on the timber, offer the southern suppliers. Do not wait to be asked."

Lysander held the tablet.

’He anticipated it,’ he thought. ’Two weeks ago. He saw the vulnerability and he prepared the response and he told Adrastos to offer it without being asked.’

’A man who has been building for five years sees the pressure points before the pressure arrives.’

"Tell your king," he said, "that we are building the same thing from different directions."

Adrastos looked at him with something that was close to a smile — not quite, the controlled expression of a man who had been careful for so long that full smiles required special occasions.

"He already knows," Adrastos said.

He boarded his ship.

________________________________________

Sarpedon left an hour later.

At the gangway he stopped — not the performance stop, the genuine one, the pause of a man who had one thing left to say.

He said: "The protocol. The emergency maritime trigger. Ninety percent capacity."

"Yes."

"Lycia is at eighty-three percent."

Lysander looked at him.

"I know," Sarpedon said. "You will know within the week when we send the updated report. I wanted to tell you directly because — seven percent is not much margin and you should know before the report arrives."

"Thank you."

"Yes." He started up the gangway. "Build fast."

He went aboard.

Lysander watched both ships until they were past the barrier pilings.

’Eighty-three percent,’ he thought. ’Lycia is at eighty-three percent and the wave has not finished arriving.’

’The protocol trigger is ninety percent. Seven points.’

’Seven points at the current rate of arrival is approximately two weeks.’

’Which means in two weeks we may be deploying the emergency maritime transport protocol for the first time, with a fleet that has just lost its primary timber supply.’

’Everything is completely fine.’

He walked back through the harbor.

________________________________________

He found Paris at the harbor school.

Not looking for him — passing the school on the route back to the palace, and Paris was outside it, sitting on the low wall near the entrance with a tablet in his hand, reading. Not performing reading — actually reading, the absorbed attention of someone who had found something worth the time.

’Why is he here,’ Lysander thought, ’sitting outside a school in the harbor district at the ninth hour.’

He stopped.

"What are you reading," he said.

Paris looked up.

"Arsini’s session records," he said. "She gave them to me."

"She gave you the session records."

"I asked for them." He held up the tablet. "The mixed session enrollment data. The settlement children’s performance compared to the Troy-born children in the same session. She had the records organized by origin, proficiency level, and rate of progress."

"Why did you want them."

Paris set the tablet on his knee.

"Because I was thinking about something," he said. "The family on the beach — the one I translated for three days ago. The mother. When I found a word that worked in her dialect, her entire posture changed. Not just her expression — the way she was holding her body. Something that had been braced let go."

"Yes."

"I have been thinking about that since. About what it means to be in a place where no one speaks in a way you can fully understand. And about what it costs to move through the world in that condition, every day, making yourself understood through gestures and approximations and the charity of people who are patient enough to try."

He looked at the tablet.

"The session records show that the settlement children learn the Troy dialect faster than the Troy-born children learn anything new. Significantly faster. Arsini notes it as anomalous."

"It is not anomalous," Lysander said. "It is survival. Children who need a language to function acquire it faster than children who already have one."

"Yes," Paris said. "That is what I thought." He paused. "I wanted to understand why the woman’s posture changed. The session records helped."

’He is trying to understand something about displacement,’ Lysander thought. ’Not abstractly — specifically. From the inside. Through data and through direct experience and through the posture of a mother on a beach.’

’He is the same person who learned commercial trading in three months by full immersion. He is doing the same thing here — learning something by total contact with it.’

’I do not know what he is preparing for. He does not know yet either.’

’But he is preparing.’

"Arsini’s threshold for sharing session records is usually quite high," Lysander said.

Paris looked at him with something that was almost amusement.

"I asked correctly," he said.

’Of course he did,’ Lysander thought.

He left Paris on the wall and continued to the palace.

________________________________________

He sat in the supply office alone for a while.

The coastal watch report. The timber analysis. The buffer position summary he had drafted from the meeting numbers. Three documents on the table that together described a situation that was holding and straining and holding and straining.

He thought about what Agamemnon had offered.

"Coordinated rather than independent." That had been the phrase. The network Troy had built, absorbed into Mycenae’s structure. The relationships, the protocols, the emergency maritime capacity — all of it continuing to function, all of it now functioning under a different name.

He had refused.

The network was not under a different name. It was still theirs. And three days ago it had received the largest wave of displaced people any of them had seen, and the three parties had been in the same room within forty-eight hours, and the commitments had held, and the protocol had been expanded, and Adrastos had arrived with three names on a tablet that would solve the timber problem because his king had anticipated the pressure point two weeks ago.

’This is what Agamemnon could not buy,’ Lysander thought. ’Not because the price was too high. Because the thing did not exist when he tried to buy it. We built it afterward. We built it while he was making offers and applying pressure and moving commercial representatives around like pieces on a board.’

’He tried to absorb a network. We were building the network while he was trying to absorb it.’

’The network exists now. It is real. It held.’

’It is also at eighty-three percent capacity in Lycia and the Thracian timber is gone and the wave has not finished arriving and Cassandra said this season.’

’But it held.’

’That is something.’

He picked up the stylus and began the daily coastal watch update for Priam.

The door opened.

Not Fylon’s knock. A different knock — lighter, the one he had learned over months.

Arsini.

She came in with two tablets and set them both on the table beside his documents without sitting.

"The session records," she said. "Paris asked for them this morning."

"He told me."

She looked at him.

"I gave them to him," she said. Not defensively — checking that he understood why.

"I know."

"He asked correctly," she said.

’That is exactly what Paris said,’ Lysander thought.

"What did he ask," he said.

"He asked what the data showed about how fast someone could become capable in a new language when they needed to." She looked at her tablets. "He said: I want to understand the mechanism, not just the fact."

"What did you tell him."

"I told him the mechanism was necessity combined with immersion. And that the rate was proportional to how much you needed it to survive." She paused. "He said: how fast for an adult. I told him: slower than a child. Faster than someone who is learning by choice."

"And."

"He asked which category he fell into."

Lysander looked at her.

"What did you say."

"I said: you tell me." She picked up one of the tablets. "He did not answer. He took the records and went to sit outside the school."

She turned to leave.

At the door — her stop.

"He is preparing for something," she said. "He does not know what yet. But he is preparing."

"I know," Lysander said.

"You knew before I said it."

"Yes."

She looked at him for one moment — the look that was quieter than the recalibrating look, the one that existed in the space where two people who had been thinking about the same thing separately realized they had arrived at the same place.

"Good night," she said.

"Good night," he said.

She went out.

He sat in the supply office.

’She saw it too,’ he thought. ’Paris preparing without knowing what for. She saw it through the session records question. I saw it through the beach and the posture of a mother. We came to the same conclusion from different data.’

’Again.’

’We keep doing this.’

He finished the coastal watch update for Priam and set it aside for the morning courier.

He pulled the timber analysis toward him and opened it to the section on Carian suppliers.

Three names on a tablet from Adrastos.

He began to write the letter to the first name.

He picked up his shard.