Satou held this.
"You're watching," he said.
"Yes," Malakor said. "I told you not to die. I meant it to extend."
He was gone.
Not dramatically — just present in one moment and not present in the next, the First Seat's specific relationship with spatial location not requiring announcement.
Satou stood in the corridor.
He thought about seventeen hundred years ago.
About the one similar case.
About what Malakor hadn't told him because it wasn't relevant.
'The anchor,' he thought. 'The grounding.'
'Five hundred sixty markers. Six twenty-two every morning. The carved Fenryn figure. Kelvin's supply protocols. The Thursday meal.'
'The ordinary things that make the anchor.'
He went home.
====
The formal decisions came in writing, three weeks after the session.
Not one document — three separate communications, each carrying specific weight.
