The more witnesses there are at an incursion, the more time an agent must spend gaining control and focusing group energy. I'd gained access through the conventional protocols, established my credentials via the usual slight of hand, but with twenty minutes elapsed from initial assessment, all three witnesses were still working against a common purpose. I'd barely managed to identify the cardinal and feared he would be of little help, except in the final cycle, if it got that far. In addition I suspected the artefacts were incomplete. If information was the currency of the hour, I was a pauper.
