The judge’s first admission came after the technical account, when several people had begun to believe the council would run out of time before returning to him.
“My family benefited from the transport business,” he said. “I am not denying that.”
The envoy put down the cup they had been holding. Across the public benches, a relative who had spent the hearing taking notes stopped writing.
The judge specified the period. After the public gates opened. During the recent expansion of emergency commerce and the offices built around it. He did not try to place the trade in some distant history beyond the reach of everyone in the chamber. He called it a business created under extraordinary conditions and said its relevant operations had ended before the present officials assumed their positions.
“I never held shares,” he added.
Sera wrote the statement exactly. It answered one question and left several others untouched. A family could profit without one member holding shares. An office could be supported without money passing through its occupant’s hands. Neither possibility proved that had happened here.
The chair asked whether the declaration resolved the immediate conflict.
“No,” the envoy said.
