The Lightfoot accelerates away from the alien fighters, leaving only Portia, Viola and Fabian at the controls while Helena and Zaine work to save Meshner. Meshner briefly wakes after his implant-induced seizure and says the alien ships are fighting, which Fabian’s sensor work confirms: some vessels are shielding the Lightfoot while another has been damaged.

Meshner lapses unconscious again but stabilizes, and the crew’s attention turns to Fabian’s role in the crisis. Portia blames Fabian for experimenting with Meshner’s implant, while Helena privately recognizes that no one could have predicted the aliens’ sudden split between attacking and defending the Lightfoot after seeing a human form.

Viola reports that three of the larger vessels that protected the Lightfoot are following and sending more coordinates. Zaine suggests the possibility of a trap, and Kern warns that contacting Voyager may reveal its presence. Portia argues that fleeing would waste Bianca’s death and leave the expedition ignorant of a technologically advanced power that may someday be enemy, ally or something in need of help.

Zaine plots the coordinates and finds that the pursuing ships are guiding the Lightfoot farther in-system, giving the crew about two months to prepare. Kern calls for defensive planning, while Helena chooses to spend her waking time studying the alien transmissions, adapting her tools with Portia’s help while remembering old fears that truly alien communication might damage human minds.

After days of analysis, Helena finds no simple correlation between the numerical and visual components of the signals. Portia notices instead that the proportion between them changes in patterned ways: aggressive-looking bursts of black, red, white and sharp shapes accompany moments when the visual channel dominates. Helena begins to suspect that the visual elements are not decoration but an essential emotional or bodily layer of communication, perhaps from a species whose meaning depends heavily on physical display.

As the Lightfoot falls inward from the asteroid belt, the volume of alien signal traffic increases dramatically from the next planet. Helena detects a vast, clashing visual cacophony from thousands of sources and wonders whether the alien civilization is at war, while fearing the old human pattern of technological species driving themselves toward annihilation.