Forty-eight hours after the contact event, the zone stabilisation held.
The ambient pressure in zones twelve through sixteen was running at forty percent below the pre-contact baseline and had not climbed since the resonance had held. The above-ceiling creatures were still in the zones—the entity's ambient had not fully withdrawn, and the creatures it had elevated to A-zone depth had not reverted completely to B-zone standard. But they were no longer generating new A-zone creatures. The entity was no longer pushing its ambient upward. The zones were stabilising from the top down—zone twelve first, then thirteen, then fourteen, the pressure retreating toward the zones where it had been strongest.
Zone catalogue teams re-entered zones twelve through fourteen in cautious sweeps. Zone fifteen and sixteen remained closed.
