Page 82 of Pocket Wife

Most of it is unhelpful. Speeches. Commendation letters. Settlement preservation summaries written in the careful language of a man who understood legacy. I scan faster, searching not for confession but for mismatch.

There.

A private travel record.

Unscheduled visit to Jwoon III. Three decades earlier. Filed as agricultural preservation consultation. Duration: nineteen hours.

Nineteen.

The same number returns in miniature. Nineteen minutes inside First Hall. Nineteen hours on planet. Officials favor repetition when they believe no one will look closely.

I open the travel attachment.

Restricted guest manifest.

One Authority director.

Two regional clerks.

One external cultural funding liaison.

The liaison’s name has been redacted.

Sen says, “Redaction indicates privacy classification.”

I say, “Redaction indicates fear of a name.”

Kaun expands the underlying hash. Her jaw tightens. “The redaction was added later.”

“By whom?” Salo asks.

Kaun checks.

The answer appears.

Helix Legal Preservation Unit.

The chamber changes after that. Not in volume. In pressure. Even the screens from distant settlements seem to lean closer.

Corvek sits down slowly.

I highlight the liaison field. “Unredact it.”

Sen objects. Salo overrules. Kaun authorizes.

The name appears.

Malrec Vaul.

Lucy frowns from the resident table. “Who is that?”

I know.

The knowledge lands cold.

“Malrec Vaul was a Pi’rell cultural liaison,” I say. “Officially independent. Unofficially, he brokered preservation access between displaced Pi’rell archives and corporate sponsors after our homeworld fell.”

Lucy raises her eyes to me then.