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“Do you?”

I hate how gentle the question is.

Anger would be easier. I could push against anger. I could mock it, sharpen myself on it, make the old familiar sparks fly until neither of us had to feel what sat underneath. But Ghar is not angry right now. He is hurt, exhausted, and worried enough to speak carefully.

That makes me much harder to defend.

“I don’t know,” I admit.

The words emerge quietly enough that Brakk stops moving.

I look back at the coordinate lattice. The black-rimmed point pulses in the depths of the projection, patient and impossible. “I thought I knew. I thought if we found the truth, the question would be how to prove it, how to protect it, how to get it out before people like Merrow or Rolaev or some Alliance admiral shoved it into a vault. I thought the moral equation was simple because lies are poison.”

Sira’s eyes soften. “Lies are poison.”

“Truth can be poison too,” I say, and the admission tastes like betrayal. “That’s the part I didn’t want to know.”

Ghar steps closer, but he does not touch me yet. “We can leave.”

I laugh once, quietly and without humor. “Can we?”

“Yes.”

“You really believe that?”

“We can turn away from this chamber.”

“That’s not the same as leaving. The Choir is above us. The surface is gone. Rolaev has already seen enough to hunt us forever. The archive fragments are in our hands, and the final substrate is down there waiting like the biggest bad idea in recorded history.” I look up at him, and the fear finally slips loose in my voice. “If we leave now, we leave with partial truths and no context. That might be even worse.”

He knows I am right.

That does not make me feel better.

Sira moves nearer to the lattice, though Brakk hovers close enough to catch her if she falters. “A final record may contain context that fragments lack. It may also contain material Rolaev has not seen.”

“That is what scares me,” I whisper.

Brakk scratches the side of his muzzle, his usual irreverence dimmed by fatigue. “For what it’s worth, which is a phrase that has never preceded anything valuable, I don’t think any of us are smart enough for this.”

I look at him.

He shrugs. “I mean, you’re smart. Sira’s spooky smart. The giant bleeds strategically. I am, of course, a genius. But this is bigger than smart. This is the kind of thing civilizations should approach with committees, philosophers, medics, snacks, and several escape ships.”

“Snacks?” I ask weakly.

“Morale matters.”

A real laugh escapes me, small and cracked.

It hurts.

Ghar’s hand comes to rest lightly at my back.

The contact is careful enough that I could step away without effort.

I do not.

His warmth seeps through my coat, steady and solid against the chamber’s ancient hum. I feel the bond answer, but it is no longer the only thing I feel. There is also his breathing, roughened by injury, his restraint, his refusal to push me forward or pull me back without first letting me stand in the fear myself.