After Senkovi triggers volcanism on Damascus, an open hole in the ice allows remotes to find the wreck of the Aegean’s shuttle deep underwater. Han and the others who abandoned ship die when the Earth-sent virus strikes their systems before they can stabilize orbit. Senkovi, realizing his reckless workaround saved the Aegean but contributed to human deaths, falls into severe depression.

Baltiel tries to draw Senkovi out because the terraforming mission now has only five known humans on this side of Earth’s solar system and needs Senkovi’s expertise. When sympathy and offers of medication fail, Baltiel threatens to jettison the octopuses. The threat forces Senkovi to emerge, break down, and accept that he will try to continue working.

Senkovi resumes his octopus research, and Baltiel observes that the animals are not merely curiosities or therapy. In simulated tasks, the octopuses solve problems chaotically but effectively, repairing and repurposing systems without direct orders. Baltiel begins to accept that Senkovi’s creatures could become a useful workforce for future terraforming.

Seven days after the disaster, Baltiel gathers the surviving crew and confirms that Earth and the solar colonies have gone silent. The last human transmissions appear to have carried the destructive virus, and the dead include Skai’s group in orbit and Han’s team on Damascus. The survivors confront the likelihood that they may be among the last humans.

Baltiel responds by turning the crew back toward work. Senkovi still hopes refugees may come and projects that Damascus could become habitable within thirty Earth years, while Baltiel begins preparing to return to Nod, recover what can be salvaged, and continue the earlier work there. With the Aegean awaiting slow repairs, terraforming, and biological progress, the survivors settle into a cold-sleep rota, and no one proposes returning to Earth.