Juno’s first comparison looked persuasive for the wrong reason.
A clean rise followed the quest’s completion, and Eli could see it from the far side of the table. He had come ready to carry a warning. The sight of the curve gave him, for a moment, the relief of a problem becoming simple.
Then the outside operator put a finger beneath the reference line.
“Why does the background rise here too?”
Juno leaned closer. The independent receiver had remained fixed, but a nearby transport conduit had changed load during the event. The local operator had noted it in the margin. It could explain part of the rise if the comparison used the whole recording without separating the reference interval.
Eli felt the relief leave him.
“Does that invalidate it?”
“It invalidates this quick version,” Juno said.
