diff --git a/drivers/cube/cubelinux_store.rs b/drivers/cube/cubelinux_store.rs
index 8b18be6dd..9ed57e753 100644
--- a/drivers/cube/cubelinux_store.rs
+++ b/drivers/cube/cubelinux_store.rs
@@ -278,6 +278,18 @@ const BOOT_SPACE: [u8; SPACE_ID_LEN] = [0xFC; SPACE_ID_LEN];
 /// The class mask the boot record stamps: `EventFlags::BOOT`, bit 7. The kernel cannot link
 /// `cube-core`, so the bit is spelled out here and on the userspace side, and the agreement is held
 /// by `verify-boot-record` — the same shape as the `0xFC` space id, for the same reason.
+/// The store class for "the kernel wrote this about its own boot" — the first bit of the store's
+/// own class vocabulary.
+///
+/// The class field is `v4`'s two bytes in the index entry, and it is **its own 16-bit space**. The
+/// reason this is named here instead of borrowed from `cube_core::WordFlags` is that `WordFlags` is a
+/// different field whose sixteen bits are all spoken for: reading this bit through it gives
+/// `TYPE_MASK == 10`, "data type: code", which is a meaning this bit does not have. A vocabulary
+/// belongs to one field, and this field's first vocabulary is `events`.
+///
+/// `0x0800` is the one bit this field and `WordFlags` share, deliberately and by name: the sealing
+/// layer stamps it here (`SEALED_FLAG` in `cube-store-seal`) and it means encrypted in both places,
+/// so the two agree instead of colliding. See `DESIGN-flag-vocabularies.md` §6.
 const BOOT_FLAGS: u16 = 1 << 7;
 
 /// The coordinate the record lives at. One record, the current boot: each boot overwrites the last,
@@ -3089,12 +3101,13 @@ unsafe fn v3_get(
     len: usize,
     out_flags: *mut u16,
 ) -> isize {
-    // The log is owned for the duration: what it says borrows it, and reading the image needs
-    // `&mut image`. It is what a checkpoint has not folded, so it is small.
-    let mut log = KVVec::<u8>::new();
-    if log.extend_from_slice(image.log(), GFP_KERNEL).is_err() {
-        return -12; // -ENOMEM
-    }
+    // The log is *taken*, not copied. It used to be copied into a second buffer because what it says
+    // borrows it while reading the image needs `&mut image` — but that borrow is one field, and moving
+    // the field out settles it for nothing. Measured, a coordinate read costs the same in a store
+    // forty times larger while the index search does nine probe reads against fifteen: the device
+    // reads are nearly free and the per-call cost is this kind of setup, so a copy of the log window
+    // on every read is the thing worth removing, not the reads.
+    let log = core::mem::replace(&mut image.log, KVVec::new());
     match log_effect(log.as_slice(), &sp, &key) {
         Some(Effect::Delete) => return -2, // -ENOENT
         Some(Effect::Write(value, flags)) => {