Adelie

"Adelie?" At Petunia's voice, Adelie turned from watching Stefan and Ches re-checking Soot's harness. The team manager was standing a few feet away, a pensive expression on her face as she pointedly avoided looking at the tall, slender man who stood next to her. He wore a plain white shirt with the ICDA logo embroidered on the breast pocket, and the pass that hung from his lanyard was yellow – the highest access clearance for race facilities. Behind him stood two other strangers in similar attire, both younger.

The man said, "Dr Forster?"

"Uh, it's just Ms Forster, sir," Adelie said, her neck suddenly burning.

"My apologies, Ms Forster," he said, with a smile and a polite bob of his head. "My name is Tomas Iew, I'm head veterinary scrutineer for the race stewardship team, I'm sorry that we haven't had a chance to meet earlier in the season."

Why was he here? Trying to keep the odd mix of heat and chills racing through her from showing, Adelie straightened herself up. "How can I help you, Mr. Iew?"

He smiled again, with the warmth of a beloved grandpa. "Tomas, please. May I call you Adelie?" He waited for her nod and continued, "Adelie, then. I hope it's nothing serious, but we've looked at the readouts from your oxygenation sensors and we felt it best to come and inspect them directly. It's possible there's a fault."

He didn't say the other part, that if he found evidence the sensors had been tampered with, the team would likely be banned from the race. The oxygenation sensors were a special addition because of the altitude at this venue, to make sure teams didn't push dragons to an unsafe degree in the rarefied atmosphere. After the headaches and fatigue she'd felt the first couple of days of being in the mountains, Adelie felt a bit like the team personnel should have them fitted too.

Fortunately, she had exactly the right thing to say to the steward. "Aheh, actually we were just double-checking everything ourselves. It'd be really good to have a second opinion."

"Grand, thank you for being so understanding." Iew took a few steps forward, his two underlings following. "Can you show us the installation, please?"

"Sure." Feeling almost choreographed, Adelie stepped back and turned. "Stefan, can you show these stewards the sensors, please?"

Stefan looked over his shoulder, saw Iew and started slightly. Maybe he recognised the man, he'd certainly been around dragon racing longer than Adelie. His tone of voice as he greeted Iew certainly sounded like he knew who he was. The three ICDA people crouched down next to him, leaving Adelie to watch.

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Petunia moved up beside her and whispered, "Is this really ok?"

Adelie took a deep breath and nodded. Soot was scoring way higher than expected for blood oxygenation – if the numbers were to be believed, the altitude wasn't affecting him at all, when even at rest the standard assumption for IL drakes was a 4-5% reduction. "If the sensors are faulty then we need to know, otherwise we're putting Soot in danger, right?"

"What if they decide we tampered with them?" Still whispering, Petunia's voice squeaked with apprehension.

"We haven't, though." Adelie tried to sound reassuring. "I want to know what's going on too. The ones we just checked look fine."

"But the numbers are too good to be true, aren't they?"

"I don't know." Adelie shrugged. "We've talked about this a few times in the modelling team meetings but Soot's really different from the other dragons. It's not just that he's smaller, right? Black dragons have a completely different range to gold and silver, they live in mountains naturally. Maybe he's just adapted for high altitudes."

"Can it really be that simple?" Petunia hugged herself. She looked almost sick with nerves, Adelie couldn't remember seeing her look so afraid.

"I dunno, I hope so." Adelie looked out at the stadium. There wasn't much noise from the grandstands yet, just the sort of constant rustling that large groups of people inevitably emanate. "The race starts in like twenty minutes, though, right? I don't think they'll stop us racing, there isn't time. If they think something's wrong, they'll take the sensors away to check but they won't ban us on the spot."

"Who's banning us on the spot?" Phoebe walked up, finally free from the attentions of her personal trainer and the team's doctor, who'd been insisting on longer and longer warm-up routines. In the back corner of the stable – the only place still more or less free of workstations for team personnel – Dr Arden and Vermilia now had their heads extremely close together, and Adelie tore her attention away before she could look any closer.

Adelie gestured at the scrutineers clustered around Soot. "ICDA inspection. They also think the oxygen numbers are weird, so they asked to do an extra check."

As if in response, Iew stood up and turned. "We can't – oh, hello, Ms. Tenryuu. Tomas Iew, scrutineer for the steward's office. Adelie, we can't see anything amiss, but just to be on the safe side, we'll fit replacement sensor elements, if that's alright with you?"

"Sure, thank you. I'd rather be sure we're not putting Soot at risk."

Iew smiled that comforting smile again. "Grand. It should only take a few minutes, we wouldn't want to do anything to delay you going to the grid."

Once the scrutineer had turned back to his team, Phoebe said, quietly, "You handled that really well, Adelie. Thank you."

Adelie blinked at her. "I did?"

"Yeah, I was panicking so bad." From the gale of breath that came out with her laughter, she wasn't kidding. "You're doing great, I'm really proud of you, you've grown a lot the last few months."

Blinking more, Adelie looked away, frowning at herself a little. Had she? She thought again about the chill of Marisa's fingers on her face. The ghost had watched her from the first day she'd moved into the farm. Maybe she could ask her when she went back.