Qiwi inspects the rockpile’s electric jets and anticipates Old Trinli’s promised localizers reducing her intense duty cycle. She meets Floria Peres at the volatiles distillery, trading a bonsai and vat-grown wood for chemical outputs and agreeing on complex deals. Their talk turns to the false normalcy of L1 “trade.”

Floria breaks down over Emergent abuses and reveals her Focused sister, Luan, has disappeared, officially listed as a coldsleep failure. She admits seeing Ritser Brughel with Luan and suspects foul play. Qiwi, believing Tomas would not tolerate such abuse, promises to investigate.

Seeking cover, Qiwi downloads personnel records under a committee pretext and calls Ezr. She finds Luan’s autopsy report lacks required crosschecks and is likely bogus. Ezr announces a 50 Msec off-Watch and begs Qiwi to protect Trixia; Qiwi agrees and later notices Brughel signed Ezr’s schedule, deepening her suspicions.

Qiwi sends Nau a deadman warning of her plan, then infiltrates Brughel’s domain, the Invisible Hand, via blind spots and Podmaster access. Inside, amid lurid decor, she obtains a local override and finds a secret coldsleep roster with Luan listed alive. She also discovers interrogation archives from early captivity; among them, immersion video shows Tomas Nau torturing and killing Qiwi’s mother, Kira.

Guards Marli and Tung stun and seize Qiwi. Nau arrives, reprimands Brughel for sloppy handling, and orders Qiwi boxed to Hammerfest for “the usual” memory treatment, deferring cutoff specifics to Anne. Paralyzed and dragged away, Qiwi resolves to remember despite the impending scrub.