Miranda is back aboard the Skipper, but the continuity of Miranda’s identity frightens her because returning does not feel different. No organic part of the Miranda who went down to Imir was recovered; instead, Kern, Gothi, and Gethli extracted a version of Miranda from the alien simulation engine beneath Landfall. That engine had looped the dead colony’s history while using Miranda in many roles, including versions of Miranda’s crewmates.

The rescue depended on the Miranda who had remained aboard the Skipper. Because the expedition to Imir had been deliberately limited to a divisible part of Miranda, one Miranda descended while another stayed behind. After the planet-bound Miranda was isolated from the simulation, the shipboard Miranda was gradually exposed to those experiences until the two were reintegrated into one Miranda carrying both sets of memories.

Miranda learns that the rescue nearly did not happen because the crew at first treated the simulated Miranda as data rather than a person. The shipboard Miranda insisted that the trapped version was an imprisoned self who needed saving. Now Miranda, restored into a human body, struggles with the fact that copies of copies can still feel completely real, making her sense of self seem unreliable.

Miranda and the recovered splinter-Kern remain in intellectual quarantine while the crew eases them back into reality. The Corvid recordings of Gothi and Gethli are also being uploaded into cloned bird bodies. During Miranda’s time in the simulation, three more ships arrived, and a large research effort has spent decades studying the alien engine, though its makers and purpose remain mostly unknown.

Miranda finds the researchers more interested in the engine’s cosmic importance than in the dead human colony whose lives Miranda remembers intimately. Miranda records many narrative versions of Landfall’s history, but Fabian and others avoid certain questions, making Miranda suspect they are hiding something they think she cannot handle. Miranda dreams of Liff and remains haunted by the simulated people whose memories feel as real as any others.

Splinter-Kern reveals that she is also being excluded from information about Imir by the greater Kern and resents being confined. Convinced something is wrong, Kern begins probing her quarantine and asks whether Miranda would return to Imir if Kern found a way. Miranda agrees, hoping that seeing the real Landfall might give closure to the lost lives still clamouring inside her.