THE CLOCK stopped after the Mimic left.
Nobody noticed at first.
The kitchen had too many people in it and too little room for another impossible thing. Hiro had been returned to the cot under protest. Rina had made him drink water with the expression of a person prepared to win a war over a cup.
Sefa sat on the couch with both hands around a mug he had not tasted yet. Tali stood near the back door and watched the wall that had opened.
Caleb sat at the table with the bowl cooling in front of him.
His hands were still empty.
That mattered more than the soup.
Sam put the blank marker scrap into the Record and closed the cover.
"Not an entry," he said again, quieter this time.
"I heard you," Caleb said.
"I was telling the book."
The foundation witness stood beside Hiro's cot. It touched its own chest, then pointed once toward the courtyard wall.
Sam nodded to it. "Marker. Not custody."
The witness lowered its hand.
The room breathed around that.
