Gothi and Gethli reflect on their nature as a paired corvid mind: Gothi recognizes patterns and preserves memory, while Gethli solves problems and generates responses. Their origins lie in engineered and evolved adaptations after Earth and Rourke, and their current task is to help Herself find her vanished companions amid the shifting human colony on Imir.

Because Imir constantly changes, Gothi and Gethli become fixated on Liff, who remains a repeated point of reference within the unstable world. Believing Liff understands the world through her storybook, the birds visit her window as if they are the Witch’s familiar spirits and demand that Liff bring the Witch’s companions to the cave to prevent disaster.

Liff refuses to accept the performance. Instead of the old storybook, Liff now has a rough textbook of diagrams and calculations, and Liff challenges the birds by suggesting they are engineered spies from the Enkidu or from another colony. Liff says the adults hide secrets and demands truth before Liff will help.

Gethli considers explaining far more than Liff asks, including the uncertain nature of knowledge and the Witch’s long transformations, but the birds decide to avoid that full unraveling. Away from Liff and beyond the Witch’s immediate oversight, Gothi and Gethli decide that telling Liff some version of the truth may be the best way to make Liff useful.

Gothi and Gethli conclude that Liff functions like an input point for altering the repeating wrongness of Imir’s situation. They compose a narrative in local terms and whisper the secrets of the universe into Liff’s ear while Liff sleeps, hoping the knowledge will change the wider system and help reveal Herself’s vanished comrades.