The organised substrate pattern changed quality on day twelve.
Not more intense—not a signal strengthening as they approached a source. The character shifted. The distributed field that had been ambient and present-without-direction began to develop texture. Local variations in the organisation, some areas of the substrate more densely patterned than others, the differences subtle enough that he hadn't noticed them on day ten or eleven but by day twelve the passive read was resolving them clearly. The eastern entity's substrate presence wasn't uniform. It was structured even in its distribution.
