Brell did not look at Iven when the sentence was read.
He stood straight beside his representative, one arm still held more carefully than the other, and watched the chair. The signed instruction lay on the table in front of him. Its folds had become familiar to everyone who had needed to read it.
Day four hundred and forty-four.
The proceeding had heard the site keeper, the operators, the public guards and the hired men separately. It had received the original contract, the house payment record and the instruction changes initialed before the men went to the ascent. Sorn’s representative had challenged the description of commercial authority and the allocation of costs. None of that had produced a right to take a public control room with weapons.
The finding named the act plainly.
Relvan Sorn had commissioned the seizure to compel an agreement the council had refused. Brell had knowingly accepted and carried out the commission. The restrictions he had written into it had limited the damage. They had not changed the purpose.
The individual findings for the six hired men were read after theirs.
One had laid his club down before using it. Two had shot. Others had struck or restrained the public crew. The court did not make their acts identical because one contractor had paid them all.
