In orbit around a newly terraformed planet she privately calls Kern’s World, Dr. Avrana Kern delivers a triumphant address about humanity’s next step: seeding uplifted monkeys via the Barrel and a guiding nanovirus via the Flask, with Sering assigned to mentor from the Sentry Pod. She revels in the project’s ambition and brushes aside ideological opposition from the Non Ultra Natura movement.

Mid-speech, Sering interrupts, revealing himself as a NUN agent and announcing he is in the engine core. Doctor Mercian confirms reactor safeties are disabled. Kern races through the station toward the central needle, weighing whether to confront Sering or escape. Concluding she lacks time to override his sabotage, she heads for the Sentry Pod—the only viable lifeboat.

With crew members converging and banging on the pod door, Kern locks them out and hastily diagnostics the release system. She improvises a workaround to bypass Sering’s tampering and detaches the Sentry Pod, choosing survival and future stewardship over a futile rescue attempt.

Brin 2 explodes, killing the crew and Sering. Out in safe orbit, Kern orders a distress beacon. She watches the Barrel, knocked off course, burn up during atmospheric entry, killing the monkeys, while the Flask survives a gentler descent and releases the uplift virus onto a world now empty of its intended hosts.

Resolute, Kern instructs the pod to wake her on significant radio changes and initiates a brain-upload procedure to merge her judgement with the pod AI. Though the immediate mission is shattered, she resolves that the virus endures, rescue may come, and the project can be revived with future primates.