**Earth: Day 68, Hour 22**
The logistics coordinator's transmission frequency changed on Day 68.
Sera flagged it at Hour 20 — not a single transmission but a series, four in six hours, all short, all encrypted in the Tower's substrate-layer encoding that Sera could detect but not decrypt.
"They're coordinating timing," I said.
"Yes," she said. "The fourth transmission received a response. I couldn't read the content but the response channel was active for eleven minutes, which is longer than standard acknowledgment."
"Active consultation," I said. "Someone on the other end adjusting parameters."
The anchor's dimensional boundary readings had shown the lens at approximately six days out that morning. Four rapid transmissions and an eleven-minute active response on Day 68 meant the Tower was moving the timeline.
I ran the calculation: if colonial oversight was coordinating with the lens team to synchronize the activation with some specific condition — my location, the Zalarus contraction beginning, the global coordination call's conclusions being transmitted — the activation window could shift by days in either direction.
I had been planning to be in the anchor on Day 73 or 74, based on the original six-day estimate.
"Nassiri," I said. He was in the doorway — Sera had brought him when she came.
"I heard," he said.
"I need to be in position by tomorrow morning," I said. "The window is moving."
"How long will you be in the harbor."
"Unknown. Long enough to be there when it fires." I looked at him. "If I go in tomorrow and the lens doesn't fire for three days, I'll come up to update you and go back down. If I go in tomorrow and the lens fires tomorrow, I won't come up until it's done."
"What does done look like."
"Either the redirect worked, in which case I come up and we have a conversation about what comes next. Or it didn't, in which case the Vassal-Link is at full function and the Tower has a working colonial relay node and the conversation about what comes next is significantly more complicated."
He held my gaze. "What's the probability it works."
I thought about the anchor conversations. The root system's substrate conductivity. The composite synthesis perception at Tier 4. The Architect's seventeen pages, which had described this moment with the particular honesty of someone who had spent thirty years not being able to reach it.
"Good," I said. "Not certain. Good."
He nodded. "I'll have the seawall clear at Hour 5."
Sera was quiet for a moment after he left. "I'll monitor the transmission channel overnight," she said. "If frequency changes again before Hour 5, I'll come get you."
"Thank you."
She turned to go, then stopped. "The global briefing," she said. "Nassiri's network. The sensitives program. The Zalarus negotiation." She looked at me. "You've been building this for sixty-eight days."
"Yes."
"If the redirect fails and the Vassal-Link restores," she said. "Does any of it continue."
I thought about this honestly. The sensitive network was built on Nassiri's command structure, my mother's intake system, Yara's field operation. It would continue. The Zalarus contraction had been agreed with the organism directly — it was not contingent on me. It would continue. The global coordination understanding of what the gates actually were would continue.
The question was whether it continued under human terms or Tower terms.
"The work continues," I said. "The terms are what change."
She looked at me for a moment. Then: "Get some sleep. Hour 5 comes fast."
I got four hours. It felt, as it always did, like not enough and like exactly what was available.
At Hour 4, the Library ran the pre-descent checklist automatically — the composite synthesis perception fully engaged, the anchor contact protocol ready, the redirect architecture loaded in the fast-access layer of the Stone's processing framework.
At Hour 4:30, I wrote a note and left it on the bunk.
It said: *If this doesn't work, the Zalarus contraction agreement is real and should be honored regardless. The organism negotiated in good faith. The eight percent map is in the coordination post's eastern wall cabinet, labeled geological survey update. Give it to my mother. She'll know what to do with it.*
At Hour 5, I walked to the seawall.
The harbor was dark and the apertures were doing their low-output clustering and the dimensional substrate below the water was running its patient, continuous draw.
I went in.