Chapter Five
RETIRING TO HIS CABIN after his duties were complete was almost Master Akabe Loba’s favorite time of day, excepting only what came after. He closed his cabin door, set his corridor-side panel to read Do Not Disturb and shrugged off his jacket, dropping it on the floor as he went to his closet. From the top shelf he took a cylindrical container. He popped off the lid and slid out a roll of very old paper, though it might have been another material such as parchment or vellum. Loba was no expert on such things. He sometimes wondered if he’d been duped into paying an exorbitant sum by the vendor, but it didn’t matter. If the document was fake, it was convincing to him, and he enjoyed the ancient feel and look of the thing. Most importantly, he had found it to be accurate.
His r
