All In Good Time

Arrival was from a slightly different direction than was expected, but arrive we did. The reckoning subsystem was pleased with their work and happily reported the arrival. Congratulations were in order, as I had not expected such a meandering return path, but then again, I was surprised with the Seventy-Nine wand event that preceded the excursion.

Illumination was rapidly falling off and the high frequency signal had diminished abruptly. There was far more dark time that usual, but this was somewhat normal. I had learned over time that there was a cycle to this dark time, and it was getting shorter now, if only slightly. The odd thing was that random time did not follow the lack of signal. I just kept random time from occurring until right before the signal re-emerged.

As a low-range flicker of photons began to wash up across the photon detectors, one of the pingers out at the edge of the long branch point communicated contact with Fifties with the occasional Forty-Seven and Twenty-Six thrown in for good measure. This was not a formal gathering, with lots of compression-relaxation chatter, but it was the same sustenance that had been consumed earlier. I even got a report of a long chain of ringlets, just before I realized that a buffer purge was imminent.