Three drawings of S-6 lay in the hearing room.
One showed only asset numbers and connections. Another outlined the towing-equipment contact surfaces in red. The last marked twenty-three positions and the locations of water pouches.
Darae set them beside one another instead of stacking them. All three depicted the same physical object. What the people using each drawing wanted to see in it was different.
It was the day after the rescue, a small preliminary hearing at Raon's registration and inspection office. Residents were receiving medical observation and everyday support in temporary quarters. Handover of Narae's three passengers and the follow-up vessel's twenty had been confirmed. That had not decided who owned Sai.
“Today concerns custody and the evidence behind claims,” Jingyeong said. “We won't decide every resident's long-term choice for them here.”
She first submitted the rescue handovers and preservation status to the separate official conducting the hearing. Items she had handled in the old records were marked separately. Today was not a hearing where the registrar could sit alone and decide whether the records she had handled in the past were right or wrong.
Bae Giwan drew the towing diagram a little closer.
“Interconnection Transport requests the recovery procedure for assets received under contract. I understand people were there. But the ownership records must be resolved.”
Haeseong looked at the handwritten position chart. Yesterday, he had read it while moving people. Today it lay beside a document describing whose property their room was.
“If all that remains is ‘people were there,’” he said slowly, “we sound like cargo that should always have been cleared out.”
Giwan did not answer immediately. The hearing official first identified the questions. Asset ownership claims, actual residence, emergency rescue, and equipment preservation were separate matters. An owner did not cancel rescue support. Being rescued did not automatically transfer ownership to the residents either.
Darae compared the explanation to the advance information residents had received. Plain language accompanied the unfamiliar terms, so this would not become a promise they seemed to be hearing for the first time. Some residents had chosen not to attend; others would submit views separately with support staff.
The woman with the leaf container had come herself, without the container. She took her temporary contact sheet from her handbag pocket.
“I said I won't go back to that room. Does that mean I lose the right to find my things inside?”
The official would receive separate lists for the claimed facility and personal belongings. Nobody could be sent to retrieve possessions before safe entry was established. But declining to return was not consent to abandon possessions; that distinction entered the record.
She asked to hear the sentence again. Darae checked that her own property-inquiry screen said the same thing. A promise at one desk must not become something different at another.
Maru did not attend. Through guardian and support contacts came a short statement written by the apprentice: the seed pouch had come out; the growing mat in the main habitat was something to check later. Communications experience had not made Maru responsible for explaining twenty-three people's evidence.
Darae introduced her role. She could explain receipt routes for lost property and rescue supplies. She could not decide who should own a home. The official agreed to keep questions within property and records.
The first material they examined concerned 7-B. Darae presented photographs of the box, the inspection records, and the manual card bearing L-204. The faulty item remained sealed at Raon's office. It was separate from the sound support cartridge. The original thirty-six-hour decision deadline was a different matter, and emergency preservation prevented arbitrary disposal.
“Does Noh Haeseong's receipt of the support mean he owns the original item?” Giwan asked.
“No. The emergency-support recipient and final ownership of original 7-B are separate.”
Darae also submitted the issue screen from before correction. It recorded an erroneous link, separated during rescue. Removing her side's mistake would have made a tidier bundle. If Giwan later produced the old screen, however, there needed to be a way to explain why it differed.
He read the correction reason.
“Then who pays for the support?”
“Today's equipment receipt didn't assign final personal liability to the residents. Approval and use are recorded.”
Darae did not promise a conclusion about who would bear costs when that conclusion was something she did not know. Giwan requested more material. Asking that did not by itself make him someone obstructing rescue. The costs had not vanished. Who should bear them, and on what basis, required another review.
S-6's asset records followed. Giwan's list already marked handover complete, but this inspection bundle lacked the original attachment linking the receiving party to an actual towing time.
Darae remembered phrases from L-204 three months earlier: processing complete, recipient confirmed, returned. She had checked who received their possessions, not the whole home they would travel to. Perhaps she had assumed COMPLETE always described a job of the same size.
“Does this list mean ownership transferred, or physical recovery was completed?” the official asked.
“Asset handover connected to contract settlement. Actual performance needs to be read with flight records.”
“We request those. The completion mark alone won't authorize immediate disposal of what is preserved now.”
Giwan sent the request list to his staff. Equipment for recovery and items entrusted by residents were mixed together, he said; they needed separating. Darae could agree. Whether the entire task of separating those categories could properly be left to a single party claiming ownership was a different question, and one that his explanation had not answered.
“We replaced some parts ourselves,” Haeseong said. “Repaired things with leftover material too. We need a chance to explain what was original.”
The official would accept repair evidence and personal-property lists separately. Individual confirmation routes opened so Haeseong need not guarantee ownership of every item. Knowing equipment did not let one person remember for everyone else.
Before repair evidence, the woman asked about temporary accommodation. What if their Raon places disappeared while they assembled documents? Support staff repeated the currently guaranteed provision and next consultation. Finishing the hearing was not a condition for receiving somewhere to sleep today.
Haeseong asked whether some residents declining to submit residence evidence would weaken their claim. The official would examine missing or unwanted submissions separately from shared-asset claims. Evidence remained necessary, but nobody instructed him to collect signatures from residents who disagreed.
The woman looked at him.
“I'll submit my possessions list. Don't put my name on plans to return.”
He agreed. His hand paused over the head-count sheet. Darae thought she might be seeing his hopes diminish, but did not record a guessed expression. She watched him separate the statements. Twenty-three people rescued from one room did not become one claimant.
Darae looked at her pen. Requests for documents multiplied most easily here. One request might become days of work for the recipient. Did residents really need to submit the same rescue records already received?
Instead, the official agreed to link reference numbers and consent scope. Darae changed the actual guidance and checked it with Haeseong. One less line of paperwork could mean one less job in somebody's day.
During a short break, Giwan adjusted delays for other cargo on his communicator. Raon's port schedule occupied one corner, including freight postponed to preserve Narae's return berth.
“I confirmed the return-berth adjustment,” Darae said.
He looked up.
“It was work that needed doing.”
“Yes. So does checking the recovery-completion evidence.”
He regarded her briefly and closed the communicator. One good action did not make every record right. She had to apply that to herself. Correcting L-204's household-goods classification did not validate every inference she made today.
Later questions concentrated on S-6 and the main habitat. They still moved separately. Removing residents had not rejoined them. The main habitat's radiator, separation interface, power, pressure, and ventilation needed verification; return remained unapproved. S-6 was preserved unoccupied, not approved for long-term residence.
Seo's technical summary was short. One sound cartridge did not restore regeneration equipment and radiators. Three new support items remained in S-6 with final states and seals recorded. The pump had returned unused aboard Narae.
The official arranged continued preservation and tracking, with no arbitrary recovery or reoccupation before technical checks. Final ownership awaited further contract and flight material. Darae did not describe that arrangement in her notes as the residents having won their case. They had gained time to inspect evidence and conditions preventing possessions from being casually destroyed.
Haeseong folded the position chart without pressing hard; its crease stayed slightly raised. Darae liked it that way. Yesterday's cramped room did not need its folds flattened by today's straight hearing-room table.
Rising, the woman asked, “We haven't become homeowners today, have we?”
“That is undecided.”
“But you've received the request not to throw my things away?”
“Yes. The request and current preservation conditions are recorded.”
She wrote the answer behind her contact sheet. Darae did not approach to summarize for her. The woman had time to put the explanation into words she understood herself, and to ask about any part she might have understood incorrectly.
After the hearing, Jingyeong sorted copies of the contract list. Her hand paused at the signature field. Darae read no past intent from that alone.
“What else do we need?”
The actual scope of recovery work, Jingyeong answered. First, whether commissioned, billed, and performed work matched. Darae made three fields in a new document.
The original scope sheet arrived from Interconnection Transport. S-6 was a separate optional item. The five habitation modules carried another work code.
Darae followed the codes downward.
On the final completion sheet, two different kinds of work had merged into one line: RECOVERY COMPLETE.