In the common room, Rickar, Campar, Dafyd, and Synnia hold an informal wake for Irinna, sharing small memories that underline her kindness and how little “safety” they ever truly had. The ritual is quiet and improvised, but it briefly lets them stop pretending their captivity is survivable.

Their mourning is interrupted when four Sinen arrive and remove Irinna’s body without ceremony. Jessyn, Tonner, and Else appear in the hallway to watch in silence. After the door closes, Tonner breaks the moment with a blunt command: “Work tomorrow,” and the others echo it, returning to routine as if routine is the only shelter they have.

The next day, Campar helps Tonner salvage and extract heavy lab equipment from the wrecked research space. Dafyd and Rickar stand watch at the alcove opening, and Dafyd points out a chitinous “bone horse” with a translator, suggesting more than the guards can communicate. The group continues hauling, exhausted and frightened, determined to get behind their quarters’ door again.

They convert the common room into a hybrid living-and-lab space, with Else splicing a power cable and equipment calibrating while Synnia sits with a frail Jessyn. Tonner lays out plans to restart assays once new samples arrive, then turns sharply on Jessyn for hiding her medical needs and disrupting his security plan. Campar threatens Tonner to stop, and the tension exposes how close the group is to breaking.

Dafyd interrupts with a reframing: the Carryx may not be testing their lab output at all, but their broader usefulness—self-organization, resilience, medicine-making, food independence, and networking with other humans. If the Carryx tolerated bombs and chaos, Dafyd argues, then “good lab work” cannot be the real metric. The idea steadies Jessyn and forces Tonner to concede, however grudgingly, that Dafyd may be right. When Else says the insight “changes things,” Tonner realizes the implication—and Campar notes the subtle shift: leadership and authority begin moving from Tonner to Dafyd.