ASSAY

You are the night clerk. Material arrives by chute. It arrives unlabelled, and it arrives whether or not anyone is expecting it.

Your job is to work out what each thing is, and write it into the record.

You have three instruments, and each answers exactly one question.

The burner asks how a thing behaves in heat. The press asks how it holds together. The bath asks what it does in solvent.

None of them will tell you what you are holding. They report behaviour and nothing else — the judgement is yours, and the record keeps it under your name.

Some tests destroy the specimen. Press something brittle and you lose every question you hadn't asked yet, so the order you test in is a real decision and there is a cost to being thorough.

A field ledger sits on the bench. Pick it up and it opens in your hands.

One shift. Eight specimens. Twelve things it could be.

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