At the four-hundred-and-fiftieth mark, Sera kept watching the instrument instead of Iven’s face.
He watched it too.
The prepared feed was moving at twelve charges a minute from the accounted workshop supply. He had begun with three hundred and ninety-six in reserve. On day 1114, after the continuing weeks of controlled work, the old measured ceiling of four hundred and thirty-two was no longer the point at which his graft settled.
The reading reached four hundred and fifty-two.
Sera called the stop.
The operator closed the feed. Fifty-six charges had entered over four minutes and forty seconds. The instrument held through the agreed interval, and the reference check returned the same result.
Iven breathed out slowly.
Five selected routes remained five. All twenty-six physical patterns stayed in the library. The clean passive return did not turn a number on a gauge into another active channel.
