Convenience tempted them to automate judgment. Fear tempted them to centralize authority. Fatigue tempted them to accept answers simply because they already existed. Each temptation arrived softly, framed as efficiency or safety or tradition.
Rarely as surrender.
Asher let those pressures play out. He observed where space narrowed and where it widened again through resistance. A citizen refusing to follow a directive that felt wrong even though it was legal. A junior archivist questioning a classification no one had revisited in decades. A community choosing a slower path because the faster one demanded silence.
These moments never announced themselves as important.
They were small.
Costly.
Often punished.
They were also the only reason systems survived long enough to matter.
Asher did not reward them.
He did not shield them.
Protection would have turned them into exceptions instead of signals.
He noted them and moved on.
The margin held.
