Chapter 60: SIX PEOPLE WHO DO NOT EXIST

DIANA’S POV

Joren Vale was the fourth name on the lower service-gate record.

The gate log, maintenance schedule, lamp issue, and meal count all pointed to the same conclusion. Six workers had entered before the main shift and never appeared on the official trapped list.

Thirty-one was wrong.

The working count was thirty-seven.

Daric stood across the table.

"Thirty-seven."

Diana nodded.

She took a clean dispatch sheet.

Her hand moved quickly.

SIX MISSING FROM MAIN LIST.

MAINTENANCE CREW.

LOWER SERVICE ROUTE.

She stopped.

Then added:

TOTAL RECORDED UNDERGROUND AT TIME OF COLLAPSE: THIRTY-SEVEN.

Daric read the message.

"I’ll send the supporting records with it."

Diana shook her head and pointed toward the corridor. Speed mattered first. The evidence could follow.

Daric considered.

Then nodded.

"Short dispatch now. Copies follow."

He turned toward the military relay clerk.

"Priority Rellan. Change in trapped count and rescue location."

The clerk took the message.

"Fast rider?"

"Fastest available."

The man left.

Joren’s mother had stood in the open doorway. She had seen the activity.

Diana went to her.

The woman searched Diana’s face before looking at the slate.

Diana wrote carefully.

JOREN IS IN THE LOWER GATE RECORD.

The woman’s hand covered her mouth.

Diana continued.

HE ENTERED WITH FIVE MAINTENANCE WORKERS.

"Then he’s alive?"

Diana wished she could write yes.

She shook her head.

The woman closed her eyes.

"But he was there."

Diana nodded.

That much they knew.

The woman gripped the edge of the bench.

"They’re going to look?"

Diana wrote: THE MESSAGE HAS GONE.

The woman’s knees weakened enough that Alma caught her arm.

A household servant brought a chair.

This time she sat.

Diana returned to the workroom.

The other five names now needed family contacts. One clerk compared them against the registrations gathered during the emergency while Alma checked the spellings against the lower gate record.

"Three have relatives here," the clerk said.

"Two families are still at Rellan," another added.

"And the sixth?"

"No registered family contact in Blackharrow."

Diana pointed toward the name.

KEEP HIM ON EVERY LIST ANYWAY.

The clerk looked uncertain.

Daric answered before she had to write more.

"Family presence does not affect rescue priority."

"Yes, Commander."

The name remained.

The public count had to change too.

Daric looked toward the board in the family corridor.

"Thirty-seven were recorded underground. The rescue status for the main galleries is already changing."

Diana wrote:

THEN THIRTY-SEVEN GOES ON THE BOARD.

A relief clerk hesitated. "Before Rellan confirms the correction?"

"The lower gate confirms their entry," Daric said. "We have no record of those six leaving before the collapse."

Diana added: IF WE WAIT FOR RELLAN TO DISCOVER THE SAME ERROR, WHAT IS THIS OFFICE FOR?

The clerk took the chalk.

The old total came down.

31 OFFICIALLY LISTED UNDERGROUND AT TIME OF COLLAPSE.

11 EXTRACTED.

20 REMAIN ON THE CURRENT RESCUE COUNT.

The clerk erased the old heading completely before writing the corrected one.

Then the clerk rewrote it.

37 RECORDED UNDERGROUND AT TIME OF COLLAPSE.

11 EXTRACTED AS OF LAST VERIFIED REPORT.

26 NOT YET EXTRACTED.

6 OF THE 26: LOWER MAINTENANCE CREW. EXACT LOCATION UNCONFIRMED.

Diana read every line before nodding.

Thirty-seven was the disaster count.

The lines beneath it were the changing rescue status.

People in the corridor noticed immediately.

"Why thirty-seven?"

"My husband’s list said thirty-one."

"Who are the other six?"

Daric stepped into the questions before rumor could answer them.

"A maintenance crew used the lower service entrance before the main shift. Their records were filed separately. We have confirmed their entry and sent the correction to Rellan."

"Are they alive?"

"We do not know."

The corridor quieted.

The new number did not make the answer kinder.

Joren’s mother came to the edge of the crowd after the questions stopped.

Her attention went to thirty-seven.

"Does that include Joren?"

Daric checked the corrected list.

"Yes."

The woman touched two fingers beneath the number, careful not to smear the chalk.

The correction had not made Joren safe. It had put his name into the emergency his mother had spent hours insisting he was inside.

Back inside the workroom, Diana returned to the route diagram.

The maintenance schedule named a lower ventilation and service-route inspection. The map showed more than one branch beyond the service gate.

She pointed to the first junction.

WHICH WAY?

Daric called the territorial records clerk closer.

"Can the assignment tell us exactly where Kollen’s crew should have been?"

The clerk studied the schedule.

"Where they intended to begin, perhaps. Inspection crews move. If they found damage, they may have stopped. If the first section was clear, they may have gone farther."

Alma looked from the schedule to the map.

"So the records prove six people entered. They do not tell us where the collapse caught them."

"Correct."

Diana looked at the marked route again.

Daric marked the intended inspection path with a note beside it.

"Supporting record only. No claim that this was their final position."

Diana nodded.

Alma had already prepared the family-reference copy with the six names and the known contacts.

Daric took it, checked the spellings once, and handed it back.

"Verified against both records?"

"And the family registrations," Alma said.

Daric nodded. "Use hers."

Alma handed the page to the relief clerk.

She looked at Daric once before returning to the remaining files.

He had checked her work, trusted it, and moved on.

He treated the page as part of the work rather than asking why Diana’s attendant had prepared it.

Neither of them stopped to argue about who had prepared the page. There was another record waiting.

Daric had the supporting records copied immediately: the lower service-gate page, maintenance schedule, lamp issue, and meal allocation. A route diagram from the Citadel’s territorial file was added to the packet, though everyone understood Rellan’s working copy would be more current.

Diana looked at the stack.

The first dispatch carried the fact that mattered fastest: thirty-seven, not thirty-one.

This packet carried the limits of what they knew.

Six people had entered. Their intended work lay along the lower service route. Their exact position remained unknown.

Daric sealed the packet.

"If Raigoro has already reached Rellan, they will have better working maps there."

Diana nodded.

The Citadel records had found the omission.

The mine professionals would have to turn that information into a rescue.

The originals remained in Blackharrow.

The correction entered the western relay route before nightfall.

The supporting records followed behind it.

Diana looked at the six names once more.

They had found the workers on paper.

The mountain still had them.

Somewhere between Blackharrow and Rellan, Raigoro was still riding toward a disaster whose trapped count Blackharrow had just corrected.

The rescue had just become harder.