Timeline examined the fragment directly for the better part of an hour, Rama serving as the connection's anchor point while Sekar and Nakamura monitored the process from adjacent terminals, ready to interrupt if anything about the examination produced signs of distress. Nothing did. What arrived through the connection instead was the particular quality of sustained, careful attention Rama had come to recognize across eight years — Timeline working through something with the same patience that had characterized every significant discovery since the original investigation.
When Timeline finally spoke, the assessment was unambiguous.
