A never-heard node has no instant to print, so the timestamp language dropped "never" back to the plain absent token and a contacts listing under --absolute could no longer tell "we have not heard from it" from "this row has no heard time". The absent word survives the switch; only the form of a real time changes. Also drops a dead guard in the preferences writer. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>