The warehouse door was locked, but the delivery list matched Bai’s invoice. Han brought two guards, a clerk, and the warehouse keeper to witness the search. Inside, oilcloth bundles sat behind an empty row of shelves.
The keeper unlocked the cabinet. Ceramic collars lay packed in straw, each stamped with the station’s old inventory mark. He said he had been told to hide them until the Registry sent a new design.
“Who told you?” Han asked.
“I was told the instruction came from above. I don’t have a name.”
Bai counted the shipment tags. “These were for three stations. The ledger says one.” He asked the keeper to count again with the outside witnesses watching.
The collars matched the furnace casing, but they needed a different spacer than the broken one. Sella came from the regulator room with her maintenance notebook. She had already measured the correct spacer and drawn it twice. She frowned at the locked shelves.
“You had the measurements?” Yan asked.
“I had the measurements before the Registry locked up the parts.”
