The outer leader returned with the answer her operators could give. They could lower to the emergency setting and maintain it for a short, defined interval. They could not hold the present contribution until a replacement appeared. The heat in the regulator had advanced faster under the cluster’s changed demand than the planned shift allowed.
Juno asked the independent observer to read the current figures, then had the leader give the emergency interval again. The observer entered the same end beside her own clock. Neither page called it an extension of the original agreement. It was a new, smaller offer made by people who could still leave.
Eli carried the figures to the central engineer. The manual lower-current arrangement could maintain the cluster’s contact at that emergency level, but separation would require a modest contribution elsewhere. Without it they would have to hold the bonds intact and stop the investigative current before the outer crew reached its new end.
The engineer marked that distinction on the sequence. Contact, preparation and detachment required different loads. A general promise that the operation remained possible would hide the place where one kind of work had to stop.
The surface liaison asked for a final appeal to the outer crew. He had heard the three traces were deteriorating and wanted that fact placed before them.
