Rakh'ash'tha arrived at the Tekarr Arch on the fourth morning after Aliyah's signal, with the mountain cold sharp in the air and the orcish security contingent's watch fire visible from half a mile out. The deviation reading when the healer walked through the research chamber door was fifty-one percent.
Aliyah was at the instrument. She had been at the instrument for most of the past four days, sleeping in the chair when the readings allowed it rather than walking to the sleeping room, because the readings required monitoring at a frequency that the room's distance made inconvenient. Darak sat at the table behind her with the measurement charts spread across every available surface and the hollow-eyed alertness of a researcher running on insufficient sleep because the data was too important to stop watching.
"The rate is holding at three to four points daily," Aliyah said, before Rakh'ash'tha had set down the travel pack. "No acceleration yet. The cycling pattern has not changed."
