A legal examination of Asterhome's generous settlement covenant and the missing officer who was supposed to explain what its signers owed in return.
The Asterhome Covenant Keeper holds the agreement under which the colony was meant to begin. The head of each arriving household was expected to sign it at the receiving house. The completed covenant would then be entered into the colony record.
The document remains unsigned and in perfect condition. The Keeper offers it to anyone who reaches the receiving house. It does not attempt to hide the text, forge a name, or pretend the visitor appears on the original passenger list.
The covenant is genuine. Its written terms grant access to a home, farmland, common services, schools, medical care, and a share in the settlement's public life. The world can provide those things. The buildings exist, the farms operate, and the caretakers continue maintaining them.
The incomplete part is the return obligation. A receiving officer was supposed to read those duties aloud before the household signed. No receiving officer ever landed, and the spoken terms are not included in the Keeper's copy. The Keeper can show what Asterhome offers but cannot explain what the signer must provide in return.
This prevents informed agreement. Generous benefits do not make missing obligations safe. The absent terms might concern work, taxes, defense, inheritance, length of residence, or something else entirely. No surviving evidence selects one answer, so none should be added to the covenant by guesswork.
The Keeper follows the original reception procedure despite that omission. It checks the visitor's identity against a passenger record that never arrived. A missing name produces a rejection claim. The Keeper then lights the ordered arrival lanes and calls Arrival-Road Ushers to continue the reception sequence.
When resisted, the Keeper does not withdraw the offer. It repeats and accelerates the procedure because its records still show a promised colony waiting to begin. Its actions are dangerous, but the offer itself is not a trick. The failure lies in a process that requires an officer who was never present and provides no replacement for that role.
Signing the covenant without the return obligations would accept an agreement that nobody can fully state. Destroying the Keeper would remove the immediate danger but would also remove the holder assigned to preserve the original document. A complete settlement requires a way to protect the covenant, disclose every obligation, and allow a new arrival to refuse it.
