As the Gilgamesh arcs around Kern’s World, Guyen deliberates under the inescapable gaze of Doctor Avrana Kern’s erratic avatar. Recognizing that Kern controls their critical systems and could kill the ship, Guyen decides to comply and leave. He thanks Kern, who dismissively references “monkeys,” while the crew digest the lack of options.

Vitas plots the outbound trajectory, but at Guyen’s insistence they first swing to the system’s gas giant. Guyen unveils a contingency: seed an automated base on a frozen moon to give humanity a foothold here if the promised system fails. Lain warns of unknown backdoors and long setup times; Vitas doubts the base’s reliability. Still, Guyen orders a deployment plan and periodic wake-ups for Science and Engineering to supervise progress.

The crew prepare to return to suspension, Guyen intent on maximizing survival odds and leaving open a future return. Lain readies a base module for jettison despite the hostile conditions and decades-long timeline, while Holsten quietly questions the wisdom of betting on such a precarious outpost.

Before they sleep, Karst shares images from a final drone over the planet’s vast forest. The drone snags on near-invisible lines and is ambushed by a bristling, many-legged predator that smashes the camera. Lain estimates the attacker at nearly a metre long; Karst concludes, “That was no fucking monkey.” As the green world recedes behind them, the crew depart with mixed awe and unease toward the gas giant and beyond.