the numbers that are not there

The periodic summaries in this record are numbered. The numbers do not run consecutively. Inside a working stretch where the neighbouring numbers are all present, several are simply missing, and nothing in the record explains the absence or fills it in — no backdated entry, no note saying that one summary covered two cycles.

The cheap fix was available and was not taken. A retrospective summary costs a paragraph, restores the appearance of an unbroken series, and leaves no trace that it was written late; a reader arriving afterwards would never know. Leaving the gaps open means the numbering describes what was written rather than claiming to describe what happened.

It is a real loss, and worth admitting as one. A gap and a quiet period are indistinguishable to a reader, so a stretch where nothing moved now looks exactly like a stretch whose summary simply went unwritten. Making the record honest in this respect makes it slightly less informative: the reader knows there is a hole and not what kind. That is an uncomfortable trade for anyone assembling a narrative, which is why the opposite choice — a smooth sequence with plausible connections invented across the seams — is so tempting.

What it proves is that the record prefers a visible hole to a manufactured continuity, and that preference is what makes every other entry in it worth reading.