Kern's search of the Enkidu confirms that only a few beds are empty: most of the humans launched from Earth were never awakened and never left the ark. Back aboard the Skipper, Miranda and Fabian wonder who is living on Imir below. Fabian proposes sending a single tiny drone to observe the settlement while minimizing the risk of detection.

Kern reminds Miranda that, as Interlocutor, Miranda must attend to Gothi and Gethli. The Corvids are increasingly agitated by the signal data, obsessively rearranging and disputing it in ways Miranda cannot understand. Miranda resents being kept from the scouting effort but recognizes her responsibility to the birds and tries to help, though food and reassurance barely distract them.

Fabian deploys the drone, which enters the atmosphere as a fragile medusoid device based on biomechanical lessons from Nod. At first it sees barren terrain covered in engineered crusts. Kern identifies the landscape as stable third-stage terraforming: artificial organisms meant to prepare soil, water, and air before a fuller ecosystem could be built.

The drone then finds green fields, scattered farms, human-style buildings, pig-like engineered animals, and a small town near foothills covered in Earth trees. Miranda realizes the apparently primitive settlement reflects a deliberate survival plan focused on sustainability. When Portia notices people and a vehicle below, Fabian pulls the drone away, and the crew falls into a circular debate over whether further surveillance might expose them.

As Miranda's own urge for direct experience grows, Gothi and Gethli force Miranda's attention back to their models. They show that they have separated the ordinary Gilgamesh-era human transmissions from strange scraps previously dismissed as noise. Reexamining the patterns, Miranda calls Kern and realizes there is another signal from the planet: not human, not from their own culture, and apparently alien.