  If quantum mechanics governs nature, black holes must evolve unitarily,
providing a powerful constraint on the dynamics of quantum gravity. Such
evolution apparently must in particular be nonlocal, when described from the
usual semiclassical geometric picture, in order to transfer quantum information
into the outgoing state. While such transfer from a disintegrating black hole
has the dangerous potential to be violent to generic infalling observers, this
paper proposes the existence of a more innocuous form of information transfer,
to relatively soft modes in the black hole atmosphere. Simplified models for
such nonlocal transfer are described and parameterized, within a possibly more
basic framework of a Hilbert tensor network. Sufficiently sensitive
measurements by infalling observers may detect departures from Hawking's
predictions, and in generic models black holes decay more rapidly. Constraints
of consistency -- internally and with known and expected features of physics --
restrict the form of information transfer, and should provide important guides
to discovery of the principles and mechanisms of the more fundamental nonlocal
mechanics.
