They gathered in the navigation room at dawn.
Jennifer had insisted on the timing—something about circadian rhythms and neural receptivity. Susan suspected it was also about ritual, about approaching something sacred with appropriate gravity. They were about to perceive through the eyes of a man who had been dead for a century and a half. Dawn felt right.
The Rhynie artifact sat in its containment field, coherence levels elevated. Around it, the teaching set figurines were arranged in the triple disc configuration Margaret had decoded—the pattern that indicated temporal reach. ARCHIE had translated the geometric relationships into operational parameters.
Six sets of neural-link glasses. Six minds about to merge into multiplexed perception. And somewhere in the chronicle, the observer-pattern of Charles Darwin, recorded on a January morning in 1833.
"Final check," Amara said. "ARCHIE, protocol status?"
"Triple disc protocol initialized. Temporal coordinates locked to Tierra del Fuego thermal deposits, January 1833. Observer-pattern identified—high-confidence match to Darwin based on geographic, temporal, and cognitive markers. 94.7 percent confidence."
"It could still be someone else," Susan said.
"The probability that another scientifically trained European was immersing in Tierra del Fuego thermal springs in January 1833 is low."
Jennifer's voice was steady. "I'll maintain baseline. If anyone drifts too deep, I pull you back." She looke…
