SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant Chapter 873: Closed Sector

The reception had been organized by Ithanne, and nobody seemed particularly excited to be there.

Every faction had sent people. The Ancients stayed together, Corvyn was as loud as ever, and Kesh remained a step behind him, speaking only when he had to.

Maela moved from group to group, talking to everyone. Several administrators Trafalgar recognized from the sealed chamber were there too, though he still didn't know most of their names.

Aldis Brenn was from the Canal Houses, third generation, and the kind of man who liked talking about what his family had built. Two different people had told Trafalgar that Brenn knew the port better than anyone alive.

They had also told him Brenn was perfectly happy to remind people of that.

Trafalgar drifted into his orbit with a glass he had no intention of finishing, let Brenn talk about freight capacity for several minutes, agreed in all the wrong places, and eventually got one detail slightly wrong on purpose.

"That would've been the glass for the fourth ring domes, right?" Trafalgar asked. "I thought that came through the south berths."

Brenn's entire expression changed.

"South?" He laughed, genuinely delighted. "You'd never get something that size through there. The cradles haven't been able to take a load like that in nearly nine years."

"Then where did it come through?"

"North locks. I remember the shipment because moving the damned thing cost us nearly twice what it should have."

Trafalgar took a small drink. "Really? I would've thought north was easier."

"It is when north is open." Brenn was fully invested now, one hand moving with his glass as he spoke. "That shipment came in during a closure. Whole sector was sealed, and they pushed it through anyway. We ended up paying for the privilege twice because the domes were already six weeks behind schedule."

Trafalgar frowned slightly, as if the detail had only just occurred to him.

"During a closure? I thought nothing was supposed to move."

"Usually nothing does. Unless the fleet wants it to." Brenn said it with the ease of a man explaining something obvious. "They control the gates. If The Tide wants a hull through a sealed sector, they sign for it and it goes through. Customs isn't going to argue."

"Convenient."

"When it's glass for a dome? Absolutely." Brenn lowered his glass a little. "When they're doing it for their own business, that's another conversation. Preferably one I wouldn't have in a room like this."

He said it in exactly that room, loudly enough for several people nearby to hear him.

Trafalgar kept his expression unchanged.

"Did that happen often?"

"That year? Constantly. Closures ran long, shipments arrived late, everything was behind. If you wanted something delivered on the day you'd promised, you went to the fleet and paid for an exception." Brenn shrugged. "Everyone did it. Ask around."

"I'll take your word for it. Apparently nobody knows this port better than you."

Brenn smiled immediately. "They don't."

He wandered off soon afterward, presumably in search of someone else who needed correcting.

Trafalgar turned back toward the room and did absolutely nothing with what he'd just been handed. He didn't write it down, ask another question, or glance toward the corner where Kesh stood listening to a man from the Ancients.

Instead, he put his glass on a passing tray and spent the next hour being painfully uninteresting to people who wanted to know what a Morgain thought about the weather in a city that didn't have any.

'That's enough. It's already out there.'

The important part was that the statement no longer existed only inside his head.

Cargo had moved through sealed sectors that year under Tide authorisation, and it had happened often enough that Brenn considered it normal. Better still, a Canal Houses man had just said it openly in a room full of witnesses.

Brenn had no idea he'd admitted anything worth hiding, which meant there was nothing to retract and nobody to silence before they changed their story.

And Toran Vesk had been standing four feet away the entire time.

Trafalgar had made sure of that before approaching Brenn. Toran had followed him to nearly every official function since the morning they met, driven by nothing more dangerous than taking his role seriously.

He'd heard every word with the mildly confused expression of a man listening to a conversation he didn't fully understand.

'Perfect. He doesn't need to understand it.'

If somebody asked him about the conversation later, Toran would repeat exactly what he'd heard. Trafalgar had learned enough about the man by now to trust him with that much.

He thought nobody else had noticed what he'd done.

He was wrong by one.

Lucard au Vaelion appeared beside him near the end of the evening, drink already in hand and the same relaxed look on his face Trafalgar had seen every time they crossed paths.

"I almost missed that."

Trafalgar glanced at him. "Missed what?"

"I was watching the other side of the room." Lucard took a sip. "Then I heard Brenn correcting you about the berths, and I thought, why is Trafalgar du Morgain suddenly bad at cargo?"

Trafalgar looked back toward Brenn. "He does know the port."

"Oh, he absolutely does. That's the problem." Lucard sounded far too entertained. "The man can't resist correcting somebody. You got one detail wrong and he handed you the rest himself."

"He explained a freight schedule."

"Naturally." Lucard's dulled red eyes settled on him for another second. "Still, I'd be careful. People have ended up in the water down here for knowing less than that."

He took another drink before adding, almost casually, "You can ask the man they pulled out of the drained channel. Well, you could if he were still answering questions."

The words carried the shape of a threat without any real hostility behind them. Lucard delivered them like he'd found the line amusing and wanted Trafalgar to appreciate it too.

Then he wandered off before Trafalgar could decide whether that made him more or less irritating.

Trafalgar let his attention move across the room one final time.

Near the service doors stood a lean man in a commander's coat, watching the group where Brenn was still talking. Trafalgar recognized Rhavel Sorn immediately.

Rhavel stayed there for another few seconds, his attention fixed on Brenn.

Then he put his glass down and left the reception.

Trafalgar watched the doors close behind him.