Senkovi wakes Baltiel from cold sleep with a prank: he disguises himself as an aged, decrepit version of himself to make Baltiel think far more time has passed. Baltiel quickly realizes the deception after checking the ship’s records and learns he has been asleep for eleven years, while Senkovi spent thirty-four days preparing the joke.

Before Baltiel’s awakening, Senkovi reflects on life aboard the Aegean since the Silence. The five surviving humans have followed staggered cold-sleep shifts while rebuilding the Nod expedition and advancing the terraforming of Damascus. Senkovi values the others’ help more than he expected, especially Lante’s ecological skills, Rani’s piloting, and Lortisse’s rapport with the uplifted octopuses, though Senkovi still finds it easier to connect with the cephalopods than with people.

Senkovi tells Baltiel that several command decisions have accumulated. The orbital module has been cleared of the virus and mostly refitted, the Nod expedition is nearly ready, and Damascus is progressing well, with oxygenated zones, a stable microbial ecosystem, and an elevator cable. Senkovi also warns Baltiel that Lante has developed a larger proposal, supported by Rani and Lortisse, that will likely provoke a serious argument.

In the crew room, Baltiel first handles the routine technical questions about the orbital module, with Rani supplying details. Once those decisions are settled, Lante explains the real issue: after long years with no signal from Earth and no arriving survivors, the crew no longer believes anyone is coming. Because of that, Lante has used stored crew genetic samples and the ship’s genetics lab to begin planning artificial human descendants.

Baltiel objects that creating artificial humans is banned science, but Lante argues that the old ethical and religious objections no longer apply if humanity may be extinct. Lante proposes modified human lineages, including low-oxygen adaptations for Nod and aquatic traits such as gills for Damascus’s ocean world. Baltiel rejects treating Nod as a colony world because its alien biochemistry cannot support true human life and must not be remade for people.

After examining his own instinctive resistance, Baltiel unexpectedly compromises. Baltiel allows Lante’s plan to proceed mainly on Damascus, preferably with people living on boats rather than altering Nod, while Baltiel and the others continue the Nod expedition. The decision shocks the others, who expected a fight, and shifts the survivors’ mission from mere scientific preservation toward deliberately creating a future for humanity.