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“Or someone they use to find other humans.”

Kesta had considered it and hated hearing it aloud. “Yes.”

“What if Elara is helping them?”

“She warned me before the drop.”

“People can be forced after warning someone.”

Dreven watched Kesta absorb the possibility. “We approach her as survivor and potential threat.”

“Both,” Kesta agreed.

That was the first operational decision they made after quarantine without either pretending intimacy had changed command. Later, outside the workshop, Lina waited with a bundle of replacement clothing. She had sewn small interior pockets into the trousers and reinforced the jacket shoulders.

“For evidence,” Lina said. “And because you tear everything.”

“I have been dropped from orbit, chased by predators, and attacked by a drone.”

“So you admit the pattern.”

Kesta accepted the clothes. Lina’s gaze moved toward Dreven at the far end of the yard.

“The quarantine wall was not soundproof,” Lina said.

Heat rose into Kesta’s face. “Which part?”

“The political testimony.” Lina’s expression remained innocent. “Why? Was there another?”

Kesta walked away before answering.

That evening, she returned to Tavi’s workshop alone. The reader had finished reconstructing one additional fragment from the drone cache. H-17 had passed through Hallow Camp twelve days before the disappearance. Beside the time stamp was a repeated symbol Kesta recognized from the false casualty files: a circle divided into three unequal sections. Project Helix had used it to mark deaths that occurred before official operations began. Here it marked a destination.

THE OUTER RUINS.

Underneath, someone had inserted a manual note in plain language.

NARA REFUSED CONDITIONING.

SUBJECT REMAINS VOLATILE.

Sera found Kesta in the infirmary after the council dispersed. Daren Pell’s cot had been stripped, but his shape remained in the room: the extra brace beneath the frame, the wall scratch where he had counted recovery days, the cup Jessa had set aside with his effects.

“Elara being alive does not erase him,” Sera said.

“I know.”

“You are standing like someone trying to make one life pay for another.”

Kesta set the copied H-17 record beside Daren Pell’s empty cup. “If I go after Elara, I may lead the observers to everyone here. If I do not, I become the kind of witness the empire trained me to despise.”

Sera leaned against the supply cabinet. “There is no clean choice. There is only a choice whose cost you agree to see.”

Jessa entered carrying Daren Pell’s knife. Her anger had sharpened rather than softened. “Pell died because the condenser failed during the first sabotage. I was first to reach him. I want the person responsible found before we march anywhere.”

“The Hallow trail may close,” Kesta said.

“And another child here may die while our guards are gone.” Jessa placed the knife on the table. “I am not asking you to abandon Elara. I am asking you not to turn my dead into permission to ignore the living.”