The departure instrument changed before Eli felt anything through the contact surface. Its fine line crossed the reference mark, held there and disappeared into the prepared exit reading. The independent instrument at the far point recorded the same passage.
The operator called both times separately.
Eli kept his hand still until she asked for his account. The narrow impression carried through the junction no longer drew toward the old bond. The plate gave him only the apparatus’s faint residual vibration. His native Gravekeeper had not become a means of following a living person’s whole future. He could report the lost connection through this contact, and nothing about a destination he had not seen.
“Departure registered,” Juno said.
This time she allowed the relay to repeat it. The old involuntary bond was open, and two instruments had registered the captive leaving the reservoir through the selected route. The record could hold those facts without waiting for answers they could not yet obtain.
A worker near the door began to applaud and stopped after one uncertain clap. The room looked toward the blank contact trace. For so long they had feared no reply that its present silence was difficult to recognize as the intended result.
