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The argument sharpened. Dreven stepped onto the lower platform. He could have silenced them with the command horn. Instead he waited until the noise spent itself.

“The condenser was attacked,” he said. “The method was prepared before Kesta Frank crossed our gate.”

Kesta glanced at him. He did not yet have proof of that timing. He continued, “No one in Ash Camp will be punished without cause. No dwelling will be searched without a witness. Anyone who has information may speak to council, Keth, Sera, or Kesta.” A murmur moved through the crowd at her name. Keth leaned close. “You just gave an unproven outsider investigative authority.” Dreven kept his gaze forward. “I gave people four doors instead of one.” Kesta heard the lesson she had forced into him.

Then Pela climbed beside him and held up the ration ledger. “And anyone who uses this crisis to hoard, threaten, or steal water loses market priority for a full cycle.” That threat the camp understood. The crowd dispersed slowly. A young maintenance worker lingered. His scales had gone pale around the eyes. Kesta approached without Dreven.

“You saw something,” she said.

The worker swallowed. “A market porter near the eastern platform. Covered face. Carried a cold case.”

“Why did you not report it?”

“He had Red Basin chits.”

“That made him ordinary?”

“That made him dangerous.”

“Can you identify him?”

“Maybe.”

“Will you?”

His gaze moved to Dreven, then to the red band at Kesta’s wrist.

“Will the commander protect my family if Rath learns?”

Kesta did not answer for Dreven. She turned and called him over. The worker repeated the question. Dreven said, “Yes.”

“For how long?”

The precision was Kesta’s influence. She felt it.

“Until the threat is investigated and the council releases the protection publicly,” Dreven answered. “Your family remains free to refuse relocation.”

The worker nodded. Only then did he describe the stall. The search found two chilled canisters beneath an abandoned market stall. One was empty. The other contained dormant red threads identical to the residue in the gauge. The stall had been rented under a false name and paid for with Red Basin water chits. Too obvious.

“Rath wants us to know,” Keth said.

“Or someone wants us to think he does,” Kesta replied.

The canisters produced more questions than answers. Kesta examined the dormant threads beneath the infirmary lens. Each strand carried a protein coat designed to survive heat, salt, and ordinary cleaning agents. Embedded in that coat was a stabilizer used by imperial medical labs. The signature belonged to medical research, not military demolition. Sera watched the sample flex toward the warmth of the lamp. “It is alive enough to seek food.”

“It was designed to eat one specific family of seal polymers,” Kesta said. “The same polymers used in old prison infrastructure.”

“So the empire invented a disease for machines.”

“And someone delivered it here.”

Keth placed three blue chits on the table. “All traced to the same Red Basin issue block.”

“Too clean,” Kesta said.

“Evidence often is.”

“Real evidence is messy. This is a message.”