Tem Kall held the North Hold message strip above red soil and waited for Farah to call it current.
She did not.
Recovery Walker Nine carried one machine-bound South Shift order. The rail beneath Tem carried one answer from somewhere else. Similar foundry words established conflict and nothing more.
Farah sent four clay seals down the service rail. Each contained a different iron shape under the same gray surface. Tem chose their order after the seals left his hand.
The rail took all four into steam haze.
Three bell strikes returned. An iron shutter rose thirty meters from the walker's left foot.
Two people stood behind it in a waist-high signal booth.
The woman at the bell wrote `DARU METT / SIGNAL KEEPER` on a clean slate. The man beside the rail brake wrote `LIRI OSS / TRACK KEEPER` on a separate one.
Farah requested new actions without showing which hidden shape belonged to which seal.
