He began preparing the argument on a Monday morning.

Not writing a letter — Sarpedon was still in Troy, the final clause of the passage terms document still requiring resolution before he could depart. There was no need for correspondence. What Lysander needed was clarity before he sat across from a man who had received a real offer and had trusted him enough to report it before reporting it to his king.

He wrote the argument out anyway.

Not to send — to find the form. He had learned that writing something forced a precision that thinking alone did not. You could hold a vague argument in your head for hours and believe it was clear. The moment you wrote it down you saw every place where it assumed something it had not established.

The first version he wrote in the supply office at the second hour of the morning before anyone else arrived. He read it back. It was the wrong argument — it argued against Agamemnon’s offer, cataloguing its weaknesses. That was not the right ground. A man who had received an offer did not need to be told the offer had weaknesses. He already knew the weaknesses. He had chosen to report the offer rather than accept it because he was not certain, not because he was unaware.

He smoothed the surface and started again.

The second version argued for the network — its value, what it had already achieved, what it was designed to handle. He read it back and found the same problem in a different form. It was a defense. A defense assumed the other side was attacking. Sarpedon was not attacking the network. He was holding a competing offer and waiting to see which way to move.

He left the office.

---

He found Ampelos in the corridor on the way to the harbor — moving with the quick purposeful step of a man who had somewhere to be and had accounted exactly for the time.

Lysander said: *"Two minutes."*

Ampelos stopped.

*"The Sarpedon conversation. I have been preparing the argument. I keep finding the wrong version."*

*"Tell me the versions."*

He described them. Ampelos listened.

He said: *"You are arguing about the offer. Stop arguing about the offer."*

*"What do I argue about."*

*"What the offer connects to. The offer is real — the routes are real. But routes connect things. What do the routes Agamemnon is offering connect to on the eastern end?"*

Lysander was still.

*"The eastern intermediate markets."*

*"Which have been doing what for three years."*

*"Contracting. The populations that sustain them are moving."*

*"So the offer is access to routes that connect to markets that are dissolving. The offer is real. What it leads to is not."*

*"And what we are offering."*

*"Is built for the world that is replacing the one dissolving. Not a road to somewhere that is emptying. A network of relationships designed for the pressure that is arriving."*

He said: *"Give Sarpedon’s king something he can hold. Not an argument — a picture. The world that is leaving and the world that is arriving. He has been watching the evidence of both for six years. He does not need us to tell him what the evidence means. He needs us to name it before Agamemnon names it for him."*

He walked on.

---

The third version Lysander wrote that afternoon was different.

He did not begin with the relationship. He did not begin with the offer. He began with the routes.

What the eastern intermediate markets had been doing for three years. The contraction visible from the inland side and from the coastal side and from the supply records of three separate regional palaces that had each noticed it independently. Not argument — evidence assembled. The picture of a network that was not under attack but dissolving from the inside as the populations that sustained it moved toward the coasts.

Then: *The routes Agamemnon is offering are real. The access is real. What they connect to on the eastern end is changing in ways that are not reversible on any horizon relevant to Lycia’s planning.*

Then: *What we have built together is not a route. It is a set of relationships between parties who are all responding to the same pressure. These are not valuable because they connect markets that currently exist. They are valuable because they are designed for the world that is replacing the one we knew.*

Then the line he had been building toward since the corridor: *Agamemnon is offering Lycia a stake in the world that is leaving. We are offering a stake in the world that is arriving. The king of Lycia has been watching the evidence of which world is which for six years. He does not need us to tell him what it means.*

He read it once.

He put it down.

He went to find Sarpedon.

---

Sarpedon was in the eastern conference room — the same room where the regional meeting had taken place, where four men had spent a morning solving real problems before addressing the problem the morning had actually been called for. He was reviewing the passage terms document with one of his assistants. He looked up when Lysander entered.

He sent the assistant out without being asked.

*"I was expecting you,"* he said.

*"I know."*

*"Sit down."*

They sat across from each other at the table that had held four parties two months ago. The harbor window was the same. The morning light was the same.

Lysander said: *"I want to tell you how I understand the offer before I tell you what I think it is worth."*

*"Go ahead."*

He laid it out — the argument he had written and rewritten into clarity. Not hurried. Not performing confidence he did not have. He said what the routes connected to and what was happening to the eastern end of the network. He said what the regional commitments were designed for and why they remained relevant in the world that was arriving. He said the line about the world that was leaving and the world that was arriving.

He said it plainly and stopped.

Sarpedon was quiet for a long time.

He said: *"The world that is arriving."*

*"Yes."*

*"You are certain it is arriving."*

*"My certainty does not change what the evidence shows. Your king has been reading the same evidence for six years. The certainty is already present — the question is only what to do with it."*

Sarpedon looked at the table.

He said: *"The offer is real. I told you that and I meant it."*

*"I know."*

*"The routes have been wanted for a long time. I will not pretend otherwise."*

*"I am not asking you to pretend otherwise."*

*"What are you asking."*

Lysander said: *"I am asking you to carry this picture to your king alongside the offer. Not instead of the offer — alongside it. He is the one who decides what it is worth. I am only asking that he decides with the full picture rather than with the offer alone."*

Sarpedon looked at him.

He was quiet for a moment.

He said: *"The passage terms document. The final clause. I will have it resolved today. I leave tomorrow morning."*

*"Yes."*

*"I will carry what you have said. I cannot tell you what my king will do with it."*

*"I know."*

*"He may decide the routes are worth more."*

*"That is his decision to make."*

*"Yes,"* Sarpedon said. *"It is."*

He returned to the document on the table.

Lysander stood and walked to the door.

Sarpedon said — without looking up: *"The world that is arriving. You have been building for it for some time."*

*"Yes."*

*"It shows."*

He said it the way a man says something that is both a compliment and a complication — the specific tone of someone who recognizes good work and is not entirely comfortable with what recognizing it requires him to do.

Lysander went out into the corridor.

He thought about what Sarpedon’s king would do with the picture.

He did not know.

He picked up his shard.

Nine hundred and twenty words.