Chapter 341: The Original

The clerk at the Alliance office checked Ren’s letter against the appointment list, then looked at the bundle on the counter.

He had brought the original in its cover sheet, with the copies beneath it. Vesper stood beside him, her notebook under her arm. Outside, people were still passing along the campus road. Their voices reached through the open door beneath the carved Alliance mark.

"Ren Valis," the clerk said. "And your witness?"

"Vesper Wren."

The clerk entered both names and led them through.

— • —

Three people waited at a long table. The woman in the middle introduced herself as Investigator Imra Dole. Beside her sat Hask, a survey records officer with the expedition file open before him. A recorder had left space at the other end for Ren’s papers.

"We asked you here to give evidence," Dole said. "There’s no charge against you. I’ll hear each of you separately, then we’ll compare your accounts with the documents."

Ren set the bundle down and loosened its ties.

The recorder read the heading into the log. "Ren Valis, holder of the registered world Verdance. Evidence received under case 2/71."

Vesper left her notebook closed beside the bundle and went out to wait.

Dole opened her folder.

"Start with the handover at the junction."

— • —

Ren described the two crews, the sealed crates and the wagon leader putting the sheet in the weather box. They had begun withdrawing before their agreed departure limit when the escort found them on the ridge.

Eira had gone over the crest. Vesper covered her route while Ren met the escort’s attack. He killed the man. A second attacker tried to intercept Eira below the ridge; Vesper knocked him off balance, and Ren wounded him with Stormsever. That man escaped down the second route.

"You didn’t follow either crew?" Dole asked.

"No. Once they were clear of the station, Vesper watched the approaches while I went down to the box."

"And took this sheet."

"Yes."

"Why this one?"

"The two references matched the carrier’s notice the office had sent me. I’d watched the wagon leader put it there. I wanted the next destination."

She glanced at the original beneath its cover sheet.

"Why take it instead of copying it?"

"Taking it was quicker. Someone could have come back."

Hask drew the fight report from the file. Ren recognized his own account beneath the copied transfer entries: the dead escort, the wounded attacker, the wagon leader’s flight.

"You lodged this on returning to the landing?"

"Yes. I included where the body was and where I’d taken the sheet."

Dole followed the relevant lines, then passed the report to the recorder.

"Thank you. I’ll hear Vesper now."

Ren gathered his coat and went out. Vesper rose from the bench when she saw him, went into the room and closed the door.

— • —

When they were called back together, her notebook lay open beside the fight report. A glass rule held the page flat.

"Your accounts agree on the withdrawal, the attack and the taking of the sheet," Dole said. "Vesper has also identified where she was watching from."

Hask checked the papers against the expedition file. He found the carrier’s notice, then the report Ren had lodged after the fight. The attendant’s return list recorded the original among the papers inspected and carried home.

The later incident report lay beside it. That concerned the six people who had approached the landing and demanded the sheet.

"The attendant recorded your identification of the wagon leader," Hask said. "The other man’s description is entered separately."

"I hadn’t seen him before," Ren said.

Hask checked the next line. "Damage to the paving is noted."

He moved on without asking about it.

Dole took another report from her folder and turned it toward Ren.

"The survey office sent a party to the junction after receiving your account. They found the station and box. There was no body at the position you gave."

Ren read the inspection date. It was after they had left the ridge. The brief account described the crest and the ground immediately below it.

"I left him where he fell," he said. "I don’t know what happened afterward."

Dole nodded to the recorder, who added that to his account.

— • —

The next document carried a mark Ren recognized from the transfer sheet.

Hask placed the licensing extract beside the original. The mark belonged to Bellcross, a licensed haulage company. A booking lodged with the carrier registry named the same two consignments and listed the crew assigned to the wagon.

"The mark led us to the booking," Dole said. "I want to know whether you recognize anyone listed for that run."

The crew register contained small likenesses beside the names. Hask kept it closed while the recorder gave Ren and Vesper a slip each.

"Look separately," Dole said. "Write the entry number if you recognize someone. If you don’t, say so."

Ren waited outside while Vesper examined it. She returned with her hands empty; her folded slip remained with the recorder.

When Ren went in, the register was open on the table. The third likeness showed the wagon leader. He looked from the face to the name beneath it, then back at the face. He remembered the man standing above the landing, asking for the sheet while his companion watched the slope.

Ren wrote the entry number and folded his slip.

Only after Vesper had returned did the recorder open both.

"Entry three," she said. "Both witnesses."

Hask matched the crew reference beneath that likeness to the booking. It was listed against the wagon leader’s position. The recorder entered the reference beside their identifications.

"What about the man who attacked at the landing?" Ren asked.

"No escort is listed on this booking," Dole said. "It covers the earlier carriage of the crates. It doesn’t tell us who accompanied the wagon leader when he came back for the paper."

She set the landing incident report beside it.

"We have your description. His name and employer are still unconfirmed."

— • —

Ren waited until she had finished the entry.

"Do these records tell you where Mei Lanhua is?"

Dole looked up.

"No. They give us cargo movements and people to question. Neither sheet names her."

"But they’re part of her case."

"Yes. We’re comparing the movements with the evidence already held under 2/71."

The four handling marks were still visible in their small box on Ren’s copy. He had copied them because they were there. Nothing Dole had said gave him a way to read them.

"If that comparison gives you somewhere to look?"

"We’ll act on it."

Ren nodded. He had brought her the records. For now, that was what she could use.

— • —

Dole moved the route report beside the receiving instructions.

"Old Cistern. Designation 12-W. You identified this as the old works on the supplier’s habitat route?"

"The designation matched. So did the stone lip and sunken road in the approach notes."

She followed the cargo instructions with her finger.

"Did you reach the unloading point?"

"No. We came from the survey road’s end, along the old stonework beside the water. That took us to the basin above the hollow. We couldn’t see the stone lip from there."

"And the channel?"

"One was running into the basin. On the later trip we joined it above the basin and followed it upstream."

Hask opened the earlier report. It described the channels, overflow, maintenance stair and fitted stone closure. The later one gave the proposed route toward the supply’s head and marked the ground they had yet to inspect.

"So this is the booked cargo destination," Dole said, touching the transfer sheet. "And this is your approach from the survey road."

"Yes. I didn’t watch a delivery at the lip."

She marked the distinction beside the route. The reports gave the investigators an approach to the works, but anyone checking the unloading point would still have to find their own way to it.

— • —

The recorder prepared the receipt while Hask compared a fresh copy against the original.

Ren checked the two consignment references and the description of the document being retained. The corner he had crushed on the ridge still turned slightly upward. He pressed it flat with his thumb, then slid the original across to Dole.

She placed it inside the case folder.

Hask finished checking the copy. The recorder certified it against the original, added the case reference and signed the receipt before passing both to Ren.

"The receipt records what we’ve taken," Dole said. "The copy identifies the original held here. Use that reference if another office needs to check it."

Ren put them inside his cover sheet. Vesper closed her notebook and returned it beneath her arm.

"We’ll obtain Bellcross’s dispatch records and locate the listed crew," Dole continued. "These are the registry copies. We need the company’s own entries as well."

She gave Ren a card with her office contact and the case number.

"Stay reachable. We may need you to confirm an identification or answer a further question."

"Through here?"

"Yes. I requested their current schedule this morning. When it arrives, I’ll send you the relevant entry for the man you identified."

Ren tucked the card beside the receipt and tied the bundle closed.

— • —

Outside, he paused to let a delivery cart pass before joining Vesper on the campus road.

She had her notebook under her arm and left it there. They walked toward the terraces through the people coming down for the midday stalls. Ren shifted the bundle to his other hand when his slate sounded.

The message was from Lyra.

Iris found a place. Tomorrow evening, lower market, the stalls past the water steps. There’s a game she says you’ll lose. Come anyway.

Ren answered with one word.

Yes.

He had just put the slate away when it sounded again.

Dole’s office had sent an extract from the Bellcross schedule. Beneath the company heading were the date of the update and the same crew reference the recorder had entered beside his identification.

The completed run for 4119 and 4120 remained in the history. Below it was a cancellation dated after the confrontation at the landing.

His next assignment had been cancelled. The replacement field was empty.