3. Nina
NINA
The docking records for Envoy Sareth's transport don't look wrong at first.
That's the problem.
But the departure authorization code is off by a single character prefix.
It's the kind of detail that only matters if you know what you're looking at.
Coalition diplomatic transports use a five-digit routing prefix beginning with CT.
Sareth's departure record shows a CT prefix on the initial log entry, and a CX prefix on the docking clearance confirmation.
One letter. The kind of discrepancy that happens in data transfer errors, equipment glitches, tired officers making tired mistakes.
Except the rest of the record is too clean. There are no other errors. Not one.
I pull Sareth's full movement history and cross-reference the departure timestamp against the bay twelve docking schedule for that night. Bay twelve was under maintenance lockdown from 0200 to 0600. The departure logged at 0340 is physically impossible.
I am still staring at the timestamp when the file begins to close itself.
Not a glitch. Not a system timeout. The record is collapsing from the authorization end—someone with remote access is pulling it apart in real time, field by field, watching the same file I am watching and trying to make it disappear before I finish reading it.
I copy everything I can reach to my personal data chip and kill my terminal connection forty seconds before the record vanishes completely.
My hands are not shaking. I make a specific note of this.
Supervisor Dennek looks like a veteran of three unstable station postings: kind, competent, and trained to know exactly when not to ask questions. He is entirely unmoved by my report.
"Torres." He sets down his processing stylus with the patience of someone practicing restraint. "You've been on this station for thirty-six hours."
"The departure record is falsified. Someone deleted it while I was actively?—"
"What you observed could be a data sync error. Coalition records frequently transfer improperly through Alliance-flagged terminals." He folds his hands. "Envoy Sareth's departure was confirmed by Coalition liaison staff. The case is closed."
"Coalition liaison staff confirmed a departure that is physically impossible based on the bay schedule?—"
"Nina." The use of my first name is not warm. It is a door closing. "The envoy serves on the Bridge neutrality committee. Any suggestion of irregularity in his departure becomes a political incident involving both governments. Do you understand what a political incident costs this station?"
I understand perfectly. It costs less than admitting something is wrong.
I leave with the copied records sealed in my pocket and say nothing else.
The customs terminal is crowded when I leave Dennek's office—second shift arriving, first shift too tired to move quickly, the constant background noise of docking alerts and multilingual announcements. I am three steps into the main floor before I feel the weight of being watched.
Kheltor is standing at the far edge of the terminal near the junction corridor, arms crossed, in the dark body armor that makes him look like a structural feature of the station itself. He is not looking at the terminal displays. He is looking at me.
I close the distance before I can talk myself out of it.
"I'm not in a restricted area," I say.
"No." He doesn't move. "You filed a data integrity report on Sareth's departure records."
It's not a question. He already knows. Whatever access Kheltor has to this station's systems, it apparently includes customs incident flags.
"My supervisor closed it," I say.
"Your supervisor is afraid of political consequences.
" He says it without contempt, as a simple calculation.
"The records you found are not the only irregularity tied to Sareth's transport.
I need the docking log terminal in sublevel seven verified in person.
The system access request has been held for two days by people who do not want it answered.
" His gaze is steady and entirely without warmth.
"Your clearance covers docking log review.
Mine covers security access to the sublevel. "
The words come with me are nowhere in that statement. The instruction is inside all of it.
"You could use another customs officer."
"I could." He turns toward the junction corridor. "You already have the copied records."
He knows about the copy. Of course he does.
I follow him.
The lower sectors of Orpheus Station are a different environment entirely.
The main corridors are maintained for diplomatic traffic—climate controlled, well-lit, policed.
The sublevels were built for cargo movement and maintenance access and have been accumulating everything else in the years since.
The lighting is functional and ugly. The air carries metal, coolant, and something organic I choose not to identify.
Workers from six different species move through the wider passages with the practiced economy of people who have memorized every blind spot.
Twice in the first corridor, Kheltor shifts his position without comment.
Once when a knot of Odex surges through too fast and too close, moving the way the horde always moves—en masse, churning, indifferent to anything in its path, and once when a human man in unmarked station gear lingers at a junction with no legitimate reason.
Kheltor's body simply occupies more space in those moments—between the threat and me—without acknowledgment or announcement. He doesn't check whether I noticed.
I notice.
I tell myself it's tactical. A trained security officer managing his environment. I would do the same with a civilian asset I was responsible for not losing in a hostile sector.
The sublevel seven log terminal is in a narrow alcove behind a cargo routing hub. Kheltor keys us past the security barrier and I pull up the docking records for bay twelve on the night of Sareth's listed departure.
The maintenance lockdown record is still there, intact.
But beneath it, slotted into the docking sequence with the precision of someone who understood exactly how the archive layers work, is a second entry.
A ghost record—logged under a ship registration that matches no vessel currently in Orpheus Station's traffic database, cleared through a customs code that belongs to a transport company I recognize.
The same company from bay nine's false manifest.
The same company whose vessels haven't operated in three years.
Whatever moved through this station in the hours Sareth disappeared, it wasn't just one diplomat and one cleaned container.
The routes connect. The timing connects.
Someone has been running the same operation through this station's blind spots for longer than anyone reported, using shell identities that should have collapsed under the first serious review.
“This was never only about Sareth,” I say quietly.
Kheltor is already copying the record. "No," he says. "It is not."