Chapter 367: Before the Transfer

Dole laid the local party’s report beside Yueying’s extract. Ren sat across from her with Vesper and Eira, while Hask opened the carrier records at the other end of the table.

Saltmarch Receiving stood where the registry placed it: a walled yard off the western haulage route, beyond the second river crossing. A landing used by the carriers’ boats also admitted people waiting for passage. The observers had watched from there and the public road.

Their sketch showed the yard gate, a stretch of paving and a roofed doorway in the inner wall. From the road, the passage beyond that doorway was hidden.

Three deliveries were recorded. Each cart passed through the gate and stopped on the paving outside the roofed entrance. Workers carried the loads through in batches, returning for more until the cart was empty. After carrying finished, a worker crossed from a side building with a covered tray and entered the same doorway.

The observers had recorded the beginning and end of each delivery, then the later passage of the tray. Dole read the times while Vesper followed them on the sheet.

"That agrees with the outside part of the instruction," Yueying said. "Carts at the threshold. Loads carried through."

"Yes. We can’t see the passage door from the road." Dole drew another sheet from beneath the report. "They also saw these."

— • —

A load had stood on the landing stones while its crew settled the delivery papers. One observer passed close enough to see a crate’s lower label, then sat on a nearby bench and copied its shapes.

Dole placed the sketch beside Ren’s copy of the 4118 transfer record.

He checked the four marks against the handling field he had copied at the junction. Their order matched. The fourth was the same closed hook, tilted to one side.

"All four," he said, turning the papers toward Vesper.

She compared them before nodding. Dole entered their observations beneath the sketch’s source and location.

"A load going into Saltmarch carries the same handling marks," she said. "We still don’t have their meaning."

Ren looked back at the consignment number on his own sheet. He had copied it after the crates left the junction. The observer’s sketch showed a different load, at a different place, with the same four shapes beneath its label.

He left both papers on the table when Dole called the worker in.

— • —

Hask had found him in one of the three carriers’ crew lists. He had worked Saltmarch deliveries until recently, and Dole’s investigators had contacted him through the address in his employment record.

He sat at the end of the table and looked over the outside sketch. Dole asked him to begin at the roofed doorway.

"There’s a passage behind it. Stone walls. A desk near the entrance where they count us in and out." He pointed beside the opening. "Here. We carry past it to wherever they tell us to put the load."

"How far does the passage go?"

"Farther than I can see from the desk. There’s a heavy door across it before the end. Iron on the face."

"Open while you work?"

"Since they stopped bringing the carts inside, yes. We take the loads through by hand. They keep it open until the last batch is past, then shut it when we’ve come back out."

Hask checked the crew entries. Four deliveries under the changed instruction carried the worker’s name. Dole asked which ones he remembered clearly.

"All four. The cart used to do most of that distance. Now we carry everything from the paving."

She had him identify the entries, then marked the dates beside his account.

His last delivery was earlier than the observers’ latest report. Dole placed the two records side by side. The party outside had seen the carrying continue since he stopped working there, though only his account described what happened farther along the passage.

"Anything between the desk and the heavy door?"

"A side door. Locked, with a guard outside it."

"How did you know it was locked?"

"There’s a bolt across the outside. I saw it in place. Once the guard spoke through the door and somebody answered." 𝘧𝓇ℯℴ𝓂

"Could you see them?"

"No."

"Did you hear a name?"

He shook his head. "I was carrying past. I kept going."

Dole recorded that before asking him to place the guard on the sketch.

"Beside the side door, facing us. You have to carry around him. He doesn’t move the crates."

"Did you see anyone take a meal to that room?" Vesper asked.

"No. They count us out when we’re finished. I don’t know what happens afterward."

Vesper began a separate drawing of the passage. She put the desk near the entrance, the side door beyond it and the heavy door farther in. When she showed it to him, he moved one finger between the two doors.

"More space here."

She corrected it, leaving the distances approximate. He could tell her how two workers carried a crate through and where they turned, but he had taken no measurements.

"Lamps?" she asked.

"Three before the heavy door. Brackets on the left."

She added them and turned the notebook toward him again. He checked the order from the desk onward.

"Why did you stop taking those deliveries?" Dole asked.

The worker looked at the side door on Vesper’s page.

"Didn’t like carrying past that."

She let him finish, read back the account and gave him time to correct it. He changed where he had stood when he heard the voice. Everything else remained as recorded.

After he left, Ren studied the drawing. The side room lay before the heavy door. There was more passage beyond it than the worker could describe.

— • —

Hask brought forward the outbound booking.

A closed carriage was scheduled to leave Saltmarch with two escorts. The extract gave its departure window and carriage type, but no description of its contents. A name and employment reference occupied the first escort position.

Hask set the Bellcross register beside it.

"The man you identified at entry three."

Ren recognized the wagon leader’s likeness. This was the man who had demanded the original above the landing while the stranger beside him watched Ren.

The new carrier’s personnel record linked the name and employment details to the Bellcross entry. Its engagement began after the cancellation already in Dole’s file, and its assignment sheet placed him on this outbound carriage.

"Bellcross cancelled his next assignment," Hask said. "This is a later engagement with another carrier."

"The second escort?" Ren asked.

"No name on the extract."

Dole left that space blank in her notes. The man who had attacked Ren at the landing remained identified only by the description in their report.

Hask put an incoming delivery booking beside the outbound one. Its expected arrival preceded the carriage’s departure. Vesper compared the windows with the observations, then checked the travel arrangements Dole had brought for them.

There was time to reach the staging point before the delivery was due. The reports showed how the recent deliveries had been handled; the booking supplied the next expected arrival.

"That’s the window," Dole said. "If either booking changes, the field commander will decide how to proceed."

— • —

"Officer Corvale will command the party," Dole continued. "You’ll meet him at the staging point. His officers will have these reports."

She placed the worker’s account beside the cargo records.

"I’ve authorized entry to investigate possible confinement under case 2/71. We have a guarded, bolted room with someone answering from inside, the cargo connection and a man already identified in the attempt to recover our evidence. We need to establish who’s there before this carriage leaves."

"Including beyond the heavy door?" Ren asked.

"The side room and the areas beyond it. We don’t know where anyone is being held. Corvale is arranging care and transport for whoever needs it."

Ren looked at Eira. She had already begun a list beside the passage sketch.

Dole included Mei’s case description and registration likeness with their briefing papers. Eira read the description before passing it to Vesper. Ren looked at the likeness, then at the side room on the drawing. They would take it with them, but nobody at Saltmarch had yet identified the voice the worker heard.

"The delivery gives us the best observed opportunity to reach through the passage," Dole said. "The worker saw the heavy door kept open during carrying. The outside observations support the carrying pattern. Corvale will check conditions when the party arrives."

She turned to Ren.

"I’m asking you to help with resistance or an obstruction his officers can’t safely handle. Can you work in a passage like this?"

"Close Sever gives me a narrow cut. I’ll need a clear line, including beyond whatever I hit." He touched the margin beside the side room. "I wouldn’t send a wide sweep through here."

"Go over that with Corvale."

"I will. I can also brace damaged ground with Earth. We supported settled beds at Kilnreach while the specialists opened beneath them. I’d need to see what carries the roof before moving a wall."

Dole noted that beneath his role.

"Vesper, keep his group in contact with Corvale’s officers. Check the route back as you go. Eira, immediate care, and tell him what help someone needs to be moved."

Eira nodded. "Where will we bring them?"

"Corvale will show you the collection point and transport when you arrive. Review both with him before entry."

Dole gave them the travel confirmation. It covered the three of them through to the staging point.

"No fragment-born Subjects on this operation. We don’t have deployment permission for them at Saltmarch."

Ren checked the departure time. "We’ll be ready."

— • —

Eira packed at the Terrace table, where the light reached inside her kit.

She checked the labeled vials against her list and pressed each stopper before securing them. Clean water, food that needed no heating, a cup and cloths went into the larger pack. She laid out two types of dressing, checked how much remained of each and packed both.

Ren brought his equipment to the other end of the table. While he adjusted the harness beneath his coat, Eira went inside and returned with a plain spare blanket from the guest room. She folded it above the supplies, where she could reach it without emptying the pack.

Vesper was making a clean copy of the passage sketch. She kept the worker’s account beside it and marked the route back through the desk, roofed entrance and yard gate. The stretch beyond the heavy door remained unfinished.

"We’ll need the local party’s route from the yard to the transport," she said, comparing the drawing with the staging instructions.

Eira looked over her shoulder. "And whether we can carry someone along it."

Vesper added the question beside the gate, then secured the notebook inside her coat. She read their departure time aloud and put the slate away.

Ren settled the glass guards and checked that his sleeve moved freely over the harness. Eira shouldered the pack with the blanket on top. Vesper took the travel papers and led them down the Terrace steps.