"I'm sure that when you get to be my age you'll have an even more interesting array of knowledge," Lenore counters, playfully flirtatious.
Conversations and charm are easy for Lenore, even with the tight security at the base, but they still find nothing. Lenore wonders again if this is fruitless, if she's missing something, if they're pursuing the wrong trail of inquiry. Why would a shipment of wood be so different from a shipment of grain? What had gone wrong with the wood? What kind of contamination smelled like rotting flesh?
Lenore hesitates a moment at the suggestion that they split up, then shakes her head before she even has figured out a good reason for it. If there's an issue, it's not something they can detect, or not present at either the Castle or Borrel. It's not a contaminant that spreads, nor develops with time, nor creates later effects--at least within their timeline. They don't need to find the grain itself only to have the same inquiries as before. Inspecting more kernels isn't going to yield anything new. What they need are stories. Indications of variance that will lead them to the source of anything significant.
"Yes," she replies instead, changing her initial answer. "But we don't ... we don't need to see the grain itself. We ask broader questions. Illness, disease, anything odd. Peculiar effects among areas that received the shipments and people who ate it."
no subject
Conversations and charm are easy for Lenore, even with the tight security at the base, but they still find nothing. Lenore wonders again if this is fruitless, if she's missing something, if they're pursuing the wrong trail of inquiry. Why would a shipment of wood be so different from a shipment of grain? What had gone wrong with the wood? What kind of contamination smelled like rotting flesh?
Lenore hesitates a moment at the suggestion that they split up, then shakes her head before she even has figured out a good reason for it. If there's an issue, it's not something they can detect, or not present at either the Castle or Borrel. It's not a contaminant that spreads, nor develops with time, nor creates later effects--at least within their timeline. They don't need to find the grain itself only to have the same inquiries as before. Inspecting more kernels isn't going to yield anything new. What they need are stories. Indications of variance that will lead them to the source of anything significant.
"Yes," she replies instead, changing her initial answer. "But we don't ... we don't need to see the grain itself. We ask broader questions. Illness, disease, anything odd. Peculiar effects among areas that received the shipments and people who ate it."