Nara enters the compensation hearing with dishes instead of a speech and forces the board to admit food records as...
The Ares Claims Hall banned open flame, emotional exhibits, and outside food. Nara brought all three in separate containers and waited for someone to decide which rule mattered most. Mika carried insulated jars. Eleni carried medical logs. The survivors carried spoons because the hall had provided none, perhaps on the theory that hungry people argued less efficiently. At the front table, Harlan Voss sat beside the compensation board with a folder labeled colony kitchen negligence.
"Ms. Sol," said Chair Adebayo, "this is a hearing, not a market stall." Nara set her pan on the evidence table. The bailiff moved toward it. Adebayo raised one hand. Good. The chair had curiosity, or at least fatigue with Voss. Nara opened the first jar. Steam rose: thin ironbean broth, blue-strip sample attached, lot code clipped to the lid. "This is exhibit one. Month four ration binder reaction. Medical log shows phosphate crash in fourteen patients."
Voss sighed for the board. "Anecdotal cooking cannot establish supply misconduct." Mika opened the second jar before he finished. "Then call it replicated preparation under witness conditions." Eleni placed three signed test strips beside the bowl. Nara served Adebayo one spoonful and did not ask for sympathy. The chair tasted, frowned, and reached for the medical log. That was better than tears. Tears dried. Frowns read footnotes.
The menu moved month by month. Bitter algae flatbread from the week greenhouse lights failed. Yeast broth from the week rescue packets made children sick. A grain paste sweetened with onion peel from the week official contact had supposedly ended. Each dish carried a lot number, a witness name, and a body consequence. Survivors named the dates after tasting, not before. The board secretary began entering the dishes as claims exhibits because procedure loved labels more than it hated surprise.
Then Voss opened the folder Nara had feared. "If Ms. Sol trusts kitchen memory so deeply, perhaps she can explain why her own brother's death file contains no body, only her countersignature on a ration transfer." The room tilted. Tavi. Fourteen. Always stealing raw yeast. Declared dead because the dome had needed paperwork before grief had time. Nara gripped the pan until the handle bit her palm. "I signed a ration transfer to keep the children's room fed." "And yet his file is missing." Voss smiled gently. "Memory is unreliable under hunger."
Chair Adebayo did not like the bitter dish. That mattered. He set the spoon down, drank water, and asked why anyone would feed children something so harsh. Nara answered without softening it. "Because the sweet packets were for cameras, and bitter kept electrolytes stable." A survivor in the rear row began to sob with her mouth closed. The secretary typed bitter keeps children alive, and every key sounded like a nail entering the company's polished table.
When Nara touched the red seed case, Voss stopped performing calm. "That item is not on the exhibit list," he said. Chair Adebayo looked from his folder to Nara's hand. "Neither was the taste of the ration binder, Mr. Voss. We are learning to be flexible." The survivors behind Nara went quiet in the particular way hungry people went quiet before a door opened.
Nara opened the red seed case and removed the one log she had not planned to show. Tavi's maintenance charm, cracked and silent until Eleni rebuilt its contact pins. She set it on the table. A beacon code blinked once, dated nine days after official colony death. Chair Adebayo leaned forward. Voss stopped smiling. "My brother is not your doubt exhibit," Nara said. "He is a missing person attached to a rescue beacon your company classified as kitchen noise." The board secretary changed one field aloud: Tavi Sol, deceased, to missing-disputed. The pan in Nara's hand felt suddenly too small for what came next.