3.4 LIGHT

Ste Etienne confirms the pod has reached air, though cameras and lights remain down. Juna clears a frozen leg joint while Ste Etienne revives sensors and lamps, revealing a huge underground chamber lined with gleaming metal patterns. Numerous Shrouded, including the aquatic forms that hauled them, crowd the space and broadcast encrypted radio continuously.

Analysis shows the diverse creatures are one species with adaptive iron basketworks, capable of shaping tools to match foreign interfaces. Juna recalls doctrine cautioning against assuming intelligence yet notes their high-level problem-solving, while reflecting on the Concern’s motives. The environment is warmer with altered gas composition, suggesting a constructed or organic megastructure.

They debate whether Shrouded knowledge about opening human tech could have spread globally via radio versus local chance contact with earlier drones, but Juna shuts down speculation to avoid paralysis. The urgent problem is navigation: the unknown terrain between them and the pole could trap or break the pod if they choose poorly.

Ste Etienne proposes a compromise: deploy a micro-dirigible drone with onboard heuristics and weather models so it can gather nav and terrain data and return autonomously. Juna agrees to write the instructions, while Ste Etienne prepares steering fins and systems, accepting risks from hostile skies.

Testing their mobility, they walk the pod among the Shrouded. The creatures react and flow aside without blocking, their radio traffic seemingly shadowing the humans’ movements. With no interference, Ste Etienne pilots the pod out of the chamber, and they emerge to whatever lies beyond.