The signals arrived together at the sixth step of the afternoon run.
Mara heard them first as noise. From every speaker in the interface chamber at once: the old line above the gate, and the small speaker on the probe frame that Sen’s crew had wired to the control bus for the step clock, and the speaker by the slate. Three voices. Containment’s low figures. Continuity’s careful conditionals. Habitation’s calibration, repeated, gauge after gauge.
All of them at once. Overlapping. None of them waiting for the others.
“Margin insufficient at probe two —”
“— if the growth continues at this rate, then —”
“— gauge four, subtract —”
Then the arms moved.
Not far. A twitch. The root set’s heat arm jumped against its stop with a small hard clack, as though someone had grabbed the lever and let it go. Then the seam set’s. Then the turntable’s drive gave a quarter turn on its own, and stopped, and gave another.
