The Forty-Person Committee was still in session.
More precisely, most of its members were still arguing. A delegate from the Royal Isles insisted that the Review Tribunal had shown procedural favoritism by allowing Leila to speak ahead of her turn; a member from Free Iris demanded the immediate establishment of an independent legal interpretation group to determine whether Montfort had exceeded the review powers originally granted by the committee.
Several others were not listening at all. They were arguing over why Great Han had obtained W-0's original casualty forms, why the prosecutor had not consulted the committee beforehand about the political implications of his final remark about its central figure, and who had allowed six Britannian commercial television stations to receive high-definition broadcasting rights simultaneously.
The argument went on for more than ten minutes.
Then, behind the Free Iris seats, an older member suddenly closed his documents, stood up, and left.
Immediately afterward, two people from the Ironblood Industrial Zone rose as well. The representative of the Royal Isles' fiscal faction lowered his head to read a note his secretary handed him. His expression shifted slightly, and instead of continuing the argument, he quietly slipped out through a side door.
Only the young clerk responsible for recording changes in attendance noticed that thirteen members had left the meeting in succession. Five of them had long maintained ties with General Smilas's office, while several others received political funding from military-industrial conglomerates involved in rebuilding E.U.'s aviation industry.
The chair noticed none of it.
He was still discussing whether they should pass a resolution reaffirming that the committee had always supported the nation's officers in expressing their personal opinions within the law.
Meanwhile, in the Global Review Tribunal, Leila had resumed speaking. Her earlier statement about W-0 had drained too much of