The Moon doesn't lie to you. No air to carry noise, no weather to smear the lines. Just white stone, black shadow, and the work you bring with you.
I stood on Tycho's southern rim with a conjured map hovering between Elias and me. Lines of light showed what already existed—the station domes, the Yard, the Reef we'd laid around it—and what still had to, if the Moon was going to be more than a mine.
"Four anchors," Elias said, tracing arcs across craters. "Clavius Spur, Plato Basin, Serenitatis Rim, and the Tycho West saddle."
"Clavius first," I said. "If anyone throws a rock at us, that's the angle they'll choose."
He nodded and pinged the crews. The warp pads below answered with a soft blue: ready.
