In the chap­ter, the nar­ra­tive unfolds about the unex­pect­ed arrival of spring on Nifl­heim, approx­i­mate­ly a year after the colonists’ arrival. As tem­per­a­tures rise, snow melts, reveal­ing exposed soil that quick­ly becomes cov­ered with lichen, hint­ing at poten­tial agri­cul­tur­al growth. The rea­son behind this sea­son­al change remains unclear; mis­sion plan­ners had antic­i­pat­ed a sta­ble cli­mate due to Niflheim’s near­ly cir­cu­lar orbit and neg­li­gi­ble axi­al tilt. How­ev­er, upon inves­ti­ga­tion, it turns out they ignored a pre­vi­ous­ly doc­u­ment­ed peri­od­ic vari­a­tion in stel­lar out­put attrib­uted to the sun’s mar­gin­al­ly vari­able nature.

At first, the colonists delight in the change, but con­cerns arise regard­ing poten­tial extreme weath­er fluc­tu­a­tions. For­tu­nate­ly, con­di­tions sta­bi­lize to a com­fort­able cli­mate, pro­mot­ing agri­cul­tur­al test­ing out­side the habi­ta­tion dome. Amidst this pos­i­tive shift, the pro­tag­o­nist, Mick­ey, decides to explore out­side with Nasha, although they still need rebreathers due to low oxy­gen lev­els. Their jour­ney leads them to rem­i­nisce about Midgard’s arid desert and poten­tial life rapid­ly respond­ing to rare pre­cip­i­ta­tion, draw­ing a par­al­lel with Nifl­heim’s bud­ding bios­phere, where new plants and crea­tures emerge.

As they ven­ture away from the dome, Mick­ey reveals his secret intent—checking on some­thing impor­tant near the creep­er-infest­ed area. After nav­i­gat­ing the land­scape, they uncov­er an entrance to an under­ground tun­nel, where Mick­ey retrieves a con­cealed bomb that was once left buried there. There’s ten­sion as Nasha ques­tions the nature of the bomb and why Mick­ey kept it hid­den from their supe­ri­ors, par­tic­u­lar­ly Mar­shall, who would have deemed it a threat.

Mick­ey explains his rea­son­ing for leav­ing it with the creep­ers as a pro­tec­tive mea­sure against poten­tial use against their colony. After secur­ing the bomb again, they pon­der the impli­ca­tions of its hid­den exis­tence, acknowl­edg­ing the risks involved. With no imme­di­ate plan for the future or con­tin­gen­cies should Mar­shall remain alive, Nasha express­es her con­cerns about their pre­car­i­ous sit­u­a­tion. The chap­ter con­cludes with the cou­ple decid­ing to return to the dome, leav­ing the explo­sive secret behind as a sig­nif­i­cant yet unre­solved con­cern.