He goes still. “And she is assigned to your archive reconstruction?”
“Yes.”
“That is volatile.”
“It is honest.”
“She will not be impartial.”
“I do not require her to be.”
He stares at me. “You intend to request her retention.”
“I do.”
He begins pacing, boots scraping faintly against the composite floor. “If you attach yourself to a grieving aide, it will appear manipulative.”
“I will cite technical continuity.”
“And if she despises you?”
“She should.”
His pacing stops. “You accept that?”
“I would despise me, if I believed the summary.”
He studies my face carefully, searching for something—regret, perhaps, or doubt.
“What are you hoping for?” he asks quietly.
“I am hoping she will follow the record farther than the prosecution intends.”
“And if the record condemns you fully?”
“Then I will not contest it.”
He lets out a slow breath. “You are prepared for that outcome.”
“I prepared for it when I stepped off the transport.”
Silence lingers, not hostile but dense.
“You cannot carry all of this alone,” Pellorin says at last, his voice losing some of its legal polish. “You made decisions in conditions most will never comprehend.”
“That does not exempt me from scrutiny.”
“It should exempt you from spectacle.”
I look at him steadily. “If the record is incomplete, the spectacle will fracture.”
“And if it is not?”
“Then let it stand.”
He shakes his head once, a gesture of reluctant admiration or frustration—I cannot tell which.
“Draft the request,” he says finally.
