At the one-line notation at the end of section twelve that wasn't doctrine.
The variable not in this framework: what Lord Satou has become. This variable exists only in contact. Everything in sections one through twelve accounts for everything that can be accounted for. The rest is his.
He closed the file.
Looked at the settlement's afternoon through the command post window.
The construction crews on the eastern fortification. The kitchen producing the evening meal. Vessa's serpentfolk completing a patrol rotation that showed the observers the gap exactly where they expected it.
Normal.
All of it exactly what the observers had been writing down for six weeks.
'Show them what they came to see,' he thought.
He went to find Lyra and tell her the count was confirmed.
She nodded when he told her.
"Tomorrow," she said.
"Tomorrow," he confirmed.
—
The gap showed at six forty-seven.
