Bram did not look at Eli when he took the witness chair.
He placed his hands flat on the table and asked the panel to identify which event they wanted him to describe. The question irritated an Aegis representative before the testimony had begun.
“The course disturbance,” the presiding examiner said. “Your direct observations of Kellan’s intervention.”
Bram nodded. “The obstacle course. Not the lower chamber.”
“Correct.”
The clerk displayed the course diagram. Kellan sat beside Tessa with the joint recovery record in front of him. The individually numbered containers had already been checked against the log. Renn’s account supported their division and transport. The appeal now reached backward into the earlier rescue credit, where Bram had seen something the panel could not replace with the later custody record.
Eli watched him lean over the diagram.
In another life, that man had belonged to the machinery of a betrayal. In this room, he was a witness with a particular view of a particular piece of falling debris. Eli knew both facts and could make neither cancel the other by staring hard enough.
