DRIFT
Probe enters the DRIFT zone at chart-time T+02:14. Field strength fluctuates with no detectable source — the readings drift ten arc-minutes per hour and then, gently, drift back. (We have decided to stop trying to anchor the probe; it seems happier this way.) The waveform is a damped sine. The probe sketches it from memory.
KNOT
The probe arrives in KNOT at T+11:08 and immediately describes a Lissajous curve, 3:2 frequency. It traces itself in a single line and refuses to lift the pen. (The intern monitoring this is taking notes faster than the printer can warm up.) Topology suggests no exit; the probe insists there is one and continues drawing.
WAKE
WAKE opens at T+19:44. The probe leaves a 19-degree Kelvin wedge behind it — a half-angle wake that holds even though there is no fluid here. (The mathematics, we are told, do not require water; only dispersion.) For three minutes the probe simply travels in a straight line and admires the geometry it cannot help making.
SHEAF
In SHEAF at T+27:31 the probe transmits twelve parallel signals, each phase-shifted by π/12. The result is a moiré that looks like wheat in a slow wind. (We have framed the screenshot; it is hanging above the kettle in the lab.) The probe pauses here longer than anywhere else. The probe likes it here.
LIMIT
LIMIT begins at T+34:02. The signal arrives as a square wave and gradually relaxes — over 1200 pixels, give or take — into a clean sine. (Fourier, watching from somewhere, is reportedly pleased.) The probe approaches a wall it will never reach and reports the gap as ε, then as ε/2, then as ε/4. The probe is content with the asymptote.
BRANE
The BRANE reading at T+42:55 resolves into nested contours: a topological membrane mapped as wavy ellipses, one inside the other. (The probe pokes a finger through, and the contours rearrange around the puncture — politely.) We are reasonably sure the membrane is two-sided; we are no longer sure which side we are on.
LOOP
LOOP closes at T+58:07. The Lissajous goes 1:1 with a π/2 phase shift — a perfect ellipse, the probe's own footprint returning to itself. (This is, technically, the probe's first and only opinion: it would like to keep going.) The probe has come back to where it started, but the chart-time has not.