After Bellagaia's information about a possible polar splinter colony, Karime continues trying to secure agreement from the main colonists for a University evacuation. Meanwhile, Iris, Ratthi, and Tarik volunteer to investigate the possible hidden settlement near the terraforming engines. Because contacting the isolated group first may be impossible or dangerous, Seth authorizes Iris to attempt contact at her discretion, and SecUnit agrees to accompany them because sending the humans alone would be a worse risk.

SecUnit, still privately struggling with its reduced drones and unexplained distress, declines Mensah's offer to stay behind or send Three instead. ART downloads a partition into a shuttle drone so it can support the mission after the shuttle enters the terraforming engines' comm/feed blackout zone. As the shuttle crosses the blackout point, contact with ART's main systems, the responder, and the rest of the team fades out, leaving the small group isolated with only local feeds, pathfinders, and ART-drone.

The shuttle reaches the enormous terraforming engines and begins a visual search because scans remain useless in the interference. Iris, Ratthi, and Tarik debate whether the separatists live in a self-built underground site, an Adamantine-era structure, or a Pre-Corporation Rim site, and Iris broadcasts a message explaining who they are. With ART-drone's processing help, SecUnit searches visual terrain data for signs of human construction and identifies an octagonal, dust-covered flat area northwest of the engines that looks like an old landing pad.

The team wants to inspect the site, but ART-drone warns that they cannot safely land without sensors and that the flat area might even be a roof. To prevent the humans from volunteering for surface risk, SecUnit takes a portable ground sensor and exits the hovering shuttle using a soft-drop pack. On the ground, SecUnit confirms that the pad is made of Adamantine-era artificial stone and that no underground habitat lies directly beneath it.

While waiting at the pad, SecUnit considers whether Adamantine may have created or authorized a hidden emergency site near the engines, using the blackout zone and the engines' value as protection from corporate takeover. ART-drone notices SecUnit stalling, and Ratthi and Iris subtly shield SecUnit from Tarik's impatience. SecUnit then searches the pad edge with the ground sensor, finds a buried powered rail used for moving floating equipment, follows it for ten meters, and discovers that it leads to the rim of a buried hatchway.