The cup answered before the shutter moved.
Nyla put one finger on the recording strip and waited. The little float rose, touched its mark and settled. Beyond the observation window, the warm shutter remained still. Hend checked the time wheel, then the independent water tube, refusing to let a surprising result become truth merely because it was interesting.
“Not the path we thought,” he said.
“Or not only that path,” Nyla replied.
Iven leaned against the sound inner post and listened to Rootwell work.
He had begun to distinguish several rhythms. The cold feeder’s steady fall. A rougher pulse from the vent lift. The long scrape of the warm shutter’s return. Beneath them, a slower movement made the stone feel almost soft through his boots. Pressure traveling through a path they had not yet drawn.
Ostel’s assistant brought the local change log.
No new regional operation had begun that morning. The observation chamber remained within its ordinary air range. The weather watch above reported a cold rain crossing the upper basin, which could change the seep pressures without requiring anyone at a lever to make a mistake.
