Page 114 of Pocket Wife

Not Eleanor’s stolen signature.

Not my fear.

Not even the panel’s urgency.

The valley was designed to resist being reduced to one vulnerable person.

Sen’s face is pale now, but not defeated. Never defeated.

“Adjudicator,” she says, “Helix requests full display of signatory bands.”

Salo studies her. “On what basis?”

“If the residents rely on multi-species civic custody, then signatory structure is material.”

I do not like the sudden calm in Sen’s voice.

Neither does Rethan. The bond carries it before I let myself glance at him. His attention has sharpened on the registry core.

Salo says, “Display signatory bands under seal.”

Kell adjusts nothing. The registry responds on its own.

Names appear.

Not all in Standard. Some are marks, some household symbols, some handprints translated into legal identity by older systems. Hartwell. Marris. Venn. Ashby. Om through external water compact. Others I know from cemetery stones and harvest ledgers. Others I have never met but feel I have been living beside all my life.

Then come the non-human marks.

Vorr settlement witnesses.

Taliin agricultural stewards.

Two Pi’rell cultural witnesses.

Rethan’s face does not change.

I know him well enough now to see the effort.

Sen sees something too.

“Enlarge Pi’rell witness band,” she says.

Salo hesitates.

Rethan speaks, controlled and quiet. “It is material.”

That costs him. I hear it.

The band expands.

The first Pi’rell name belongs to someone I do not recognize.

The second name makes the hall colder.

Malrec Vaul.

For one moment, everyone understands too much at once.