Chief Steward Volkov

Pyotr Volkov was Chief Steward of the Combine's central materials warehouse for thirty years. Stewards sign the manifest when a crate leaves and sign it again when it comes back. Volkov signed a great many, and kept copies, against regulation, on a deep-rim hauler he owned.

When the company indicted him for theft, a charge he calls fabricated to discredit a witness, he produced the archive. The charges were dropped. The archive stayed sealed. Fleet command was the settlement, on the condition the archive stay sealed while he served. He added a condition of his own: any move against him unseals it. He fights from a deliberately public position, takes engagements he can document, and keeps the manifest by hand. The Combine cannot afford him dead in their service or out of it.