The first message after the live connection failed arrived on paper.
A runner brought it from the lower relay, where short independent signals could still be received and copied. Her breathing was hard from the descent. She gave the page to Juno, identified the site and receiving time, then waited while the figure was repeated back. The contribution had held at the last local check. The report was already old enough that anything could have changed since it left.
Juno put it beside the local bridge reading rather than over it.
“Next one, when you have it,” she said.
The runner took water before going back. Eli watched her climb the first broken step and understood what the loss of live speech would cost them. A question could no longer cross the distance and bring an answer while his hand remained in the same place. The sites would act from their own instruments. Central could use what arrived without pretending it was the present everywhere.
Mira’s readiness signal waited at the winch.
Tessa had acknowledged it. She had not told her to release. The printed sequence lay against Juno’s handwritten corrections, and the technician checked the figures with his uninjured hand holding the page flat. His bruised forearm rested against his coat. He had refused a role that required his full grip, not the work he could still do.
