The revised safety article returned to the bilingual committee with its subject restored. The port authority shall suspend loading when the eastern berth fails inspection. The inspectors’ process still required negotiation; a good verb could not inspect a pier. Lukas made sure everyone in the room remembered that.
He brought a photograph of a warning lamp obscured by stacked crates. The committee chair wanted it entered as background material. Lukas wanted the rule to say who must clear the sightline before the first shift began. Talia wrote both versions down, then struck out the first. Background material was a place to put a thing nobody intended to do.
“If the light cannot be seen,” she asked the room, “does the inspector record an unsafe berth or a defective photograph?”
Lukas grinned despite the hour. The minister did not. Edvard asked for the sentence to be read back in both languages,…
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