Tessa asked everyone nearest the wall to stop talking for one measured interval.
The lifting crew set its tools down. The communication operator retained incoming traffic without transmitting. Juno kept the passive instruments recording and noted the changed work condition. The quiet that followed was imperfect: water sounded somewhere below the floor, straps creaked under a carrier’s hand, and the chamber itself made a low intermittent click.
Beneath those noises, a voice-like fragment rose and broke.
Lale recorded it without repeating what she thought she had heard. She asked to listen from a second position before offering any possible syllables, because a suggested word could become what everyone else heard next. Sera checked the short approach along the wall and let her move to the next sound footing.
There, the fragment sounded thinner. A second tone followed it too closely to distinguish as another speaker or an overlapping reflection. Lale looked toward Tessa and shook her head.
“No reliable count.”
The Aegis leader stood at the edge of the unloaded apparatus. “Can you establish a person?”
“Not yet,” Tessa said.
