Koldin wrote the location in his pocket notebook.
 
A flock of small white birds occupied the roof of a container. As he passed they lifted together, circled once, and settled behind him upon the same roof.

Workers moved through the lanes with handcarts, lifting frames, and small tractors whose engines sounded permanently on the verge of failure. They wore scarves around their mouths against dust. Sweat had marked their clothes in dark shapes beneath the arms and down the spine. Some greeted Koldin. Others lowered their eyes or watched him until he had passed.

Near one loading bay a human woman stood upon a crate directing three men moving a machine wrapped in waxed cloth.

“Left,” she called.

The men shifted it right.

“Your other left.”

They stopped.

One of them looked at his hands as though the distinction might be written there.

Koldin went around them.

The sun rose above the containers and entered the lanes in hard white strips. Where shadow remained, the mud stayed dark and cool. Where light struck, water steamed from the ground and the metal walls became hot enough to radiate against the fur of his face.

He drank from one of the bottles in his haversack.

The glass had grown warm. The water tasted clean but no longer refreshing. He drank anyway and returned the bottle to the bag.

At the yard’s central crossing he found the blocked west lane.

A crane stood with its boom extended over a flatbed carriage. One cable hung slack and frayed, ending several feet above the ground. Beneath it rested a long cylindrical object contained within a lattice of timber and metal bands. Six workers stood nearby discussing the problem without approaching it.

Koldin stopped at the edge of the marked area.

“What is it?”

One worker looked over.

“Pressure vessel.”

“For what?”

The man scratched his jaw and shrugged.

“I don't know. Pressure.”

Koldin considered this answer.

“Is it dangerous?”

“Only if it falls.”

“It has already fallen?”

“No.”

“Zhen why is it on zhe ground?”

The worker looked toward the broken cable.

“Lowered unexpectedly.”

Another man said something in Tilmuhlan. The first answered. The discussion resumed at greater volume and with no visible improvement.

Koldin noted the obstruction and moved on.

There were sections of the yard where he saw nobody for several minutes at a time. The containers rose around him and closed off the noise from outside. His footsteps became small beneath the walls. Water dripped from a tarpaulin though the rain had stopped hours earlier. Somewhere out of sight a loose sheet of metal struck repeatedly against a frame.

He passed cargo from the Heart bound inland: machine parts, pharmaceuticals, preserved food, rolled wire, paper, replacement valves, glassware packed in straw. Cargo moved in the other direction as well. Kilcane in sealed drums. Processed hardwood. Ore samples. Resin blocks. Bycite-related equipment boxed beneath military seals and guarded by men who did not look away as he passed.

The yard brought the world to Lenkerk in pieces. Some of the pieces explained various facets of the world.

Near the office building, three figures in bright red-and-gold uniforms stood with a local shipping agent beneath the shade of a veranda. Two were human. The first was a broad and dark-haired man, with a leather document case tucked beneath his arm. The second was a baxxid whose uniform consisted of a simple yet distinct garment covering the upper body, and the third was a human man with sad blue eyes and a bald head who stood at attention near the baxxid: the baxxid's assistant. House Ivenmoth’s colors appeared almost indecently vivid against the mud and oxidized metal around them.

The human official spoke in trade speech.

“Manifest says eighty-six.”

The baxxid shipping agent held a clipboard with an artificial hand.

“Eighty-four arrived.”

“Then two are missing.”

“Or the manifest is wrong.”

“The manifest is certified.”

The baxxid made a low resonant sound that Koldin felt faintly through the pads of his feet. Its six eyes shifted from the clipboard to the rows of containers.

The shipping agent motioned for his assistant to turn the page, which he did promptly. 

“We have eighty-four.”

The human official said, “We paid handling on eighty-six.”

“Then you overpaid.”

The official stared at him.

The man seemed to realize that he had accidentally reduced a dispute to its essential form. He attempted to rebuild it.

“I mean there may have been a clerical discrepancy at the originating depot.”

The baxxid spoke. Its humanoid words were controlled and precise, with only a faint drawn vibration beneath them.

“Show us the seals.”

The three went inside.

Koldin had no authority over missing House cargo unless somebody began using weapons. He continued past the office and entered the northern lanes.

Hours accumulated.

He inspected a breach in the outer drainage ditch where runoff had carried part of an embankment away. He redirected two boys who had entered through a gap in the fence to gather discarded binding wire. He stopped beside a loading platform while a worker drove a tractor backward with neither mirror nor visible confidence. He stood beneath the sun while a foreman searched for a key that remained throughout the search in his own hand.

Nothing required force. Nothing justified paperwork beyond short entries in the notebook.