The chap­ter opens with Berto, the pilot, reflect­ing on the chaot­ic events of a recent sor­tie where three peo­ple died, elic­it­ing a cold reac­tion from Cat, who is vis­i­bly affect­ed. Ten­sion fills the cock­pit as Cat con­fronts Berto about his fail­ure to warn them about the pres­ence of dead­ly creep­ers, which ulti­mate­ly led to the mission’s grim out­come. Berto, seem­ing­ly embar­rassed, apol­o­gizes but tries to jus­ti­fy his actions, lead­ing to a heat­ed exchange with Cat.

After the land­ing, Cat and the nar­ra­tor con­front Mar­shall, their supe­ri­or, regard­ing the inci­dent. Mar­shall is incensed, press­ing them to explain why they pri­or­i­tized their sur­vival over help­ing Mr. Dugan when they were sup­posed to retrieve a creep­er. The nar­ra­tor attempts to artic­u­late their rea­son­ing, cit­ing the mis­sion’s objec­tives and their judg­ment at the moment. Mar­shall, unim­pressed, con­tin­ues to scru­ti­nize the duo, deliv­er­ing harsh threats and empha­siz­ing the sig­nif­i­cance of their actions giv­en the dwin­dling colony pop­u­la­tion.

Frus­tra­tion lingers post-brief­ing as Cat and the nar­ra­tor digest their grim day over a meal. The cafe­te­ria is filled with a tense air as sur­vivors grap­ple with their loss­es. Cat express­es her dis­dain for Marshall’s insin­u­a­tion that her judg­ment could be cloud­ed by per­son­al feel­ings towards the nar­ra­tor, assert­ing her pro­fes­sion­al­ism. Dur­ing their meal, Cat and the nar­ra­tor joke, though the weight of recent events hangs heavy.

After the meal, the nar­ra­tor shares ten­der moments with Nasha, explor­ing their com­plex rela­tion­ships ground­ed in humor and past threats from their supe­ri­or. In a heavy yet light-heart­ed man­ner, they dis­sect the bizarre nature of their colony’s recent loss­es, voic­ing con­cerns over the mys­te­ri­ous creep­ers that man­aged to breach defens­es with­out detec­tion.

The chap­ter clos­es with the nar­ra­tor haunt­ed by unset­tling dreams and visions from Midgard, reveal­ing a trou­bled psy­che amidst a dan­ger­ous real­i­ty. Over­whelmed by feel­ings of dis­ori­en­ta­tion and fear, they con­front the trau­ma of their exis­tence and the uncer­tain­ties sur­round­ing their sur­vival in the unfor­giv­ing envi­ron­ment of the colony.