The hum did not grow louder so much as it became harder to ignore.

It settled into the intake room beneath the ordinary sounds of the station. The ventilation, the soft vibration of power through the deck, the restrained alert tone from PO Xandar Brendan’s tricorder. It was low enough that the instruments continued to insist that it did not exist, yet it was strong enough for Ens Allie Willows to feel it behind her eyes.

Ens Sara Winters kept one hand around her arm.

“I’m not crossing the contamination line,” Allie said

“You were leaning,” Sara said.

“I was just listening.”

“You listen with your ears. They don’t need to be closer.”

Allie glanced at her. “That isn’t always true.”

“That sentence is why I’m holding you.”

Inside the isolation alcove, the black lattice floated above the examination platform. Its narrow branches remained motionless around the impossible absence at its centre. The barrier readings were stable. No radiation, no emissions and no active energy source appeared on any display.

Cdr Ru’ket Gyles studied the object over the rim of his spectacles. “Petty Officer, confirmed containment.”

Brendan moved between the two control panels, his tricorder sweeping across the alcove. “Primary and secondary barriers are holding. Structural integrity is nominal. There is no measurable energy transfer between the object and the surrounding systems.”

“The lights dimmed,” Ens Rio Rydar said.

“I am aware.”

“The controls flickered.”

“I am also aware of that.”

“You said there was no transfer.”

Rio folded her arms. “It keeps doing things you can’t measure.”

Brendan’s antennae angled towards her. “That is why we are measuring it.”

Gyles raised one hand before the conversation could develop into an argument. “Archive control remains unavailable. Until contact is restored, we proceed under hazardous-intake procedure. The lattice stays where it is. Nothing else is opened.”

Sara nodded immediately.

Allie did not.

Gyles noticed. “Objection, Ensign?”

“We have already opened most of the other containers.”

“That is not an objection.”

“No sir,” Allie continued, “I’m considering whether the reaction began when we opened this container or when we entered the object into the local inventory.”

Gyles turned towards the central terminal. “Did we enter it?”

“No,” Sara said. “It wasn’t on the manifest.”

“The intake system created a temporary record when the platform restraints engaged,” Rio said. She moved to the terminal and brought up the automated log. “Unidentified object, black lattice structure, origin pending.”

Allie looked back towards the containment alcove. “And that happened just before the hum began.”

Sara looked up from her tricorder. “The object reacted after being moved, scanned, exposed to the atmosphere and entered into the system. Any of those could be relevant.”

Allie smiled faintly. “That sounds almost like curiosity.”

“It’s a threat assessment” Sara replied.

Before the conversation could go further, the doors opened and Lt Halen hurried into the room. Her hair was now entirely free of how she’d arranged it before her shift and the number of PADDs under her arm had increased.

“I heard there was an intake alert,” she said.

Gyles stepped aside to give her a clear view of the isolation alcove.

Halen stopped.

The PADD at the top of her stack slipped sideways. She caught it against her cheek without looking away from the lattice.

“That,” she said, “was not in the shipment.”

“We had reached the same conclusion,” Gyles said.

Halen placed the PADDs on a nearby console and moved toward the barrier controls. “Where did it come from?”

“It carried a valid USS ibn Al-Haytham transport seal,” Brendan said. “No corresponding manifest entry exists.”

“And you opened it?”

“Under full containment,” Gyles said.

Halen looked towards him.

He held her gaze.

After a moment, she exhaled. “All right. Fair. I would probably opened it too.”

Sara looked at her. “That is not reassuring.”

“It was not intended to be.”

Halen began examining the readings. “No mass reading. No energy signature. No recognisable material composition. It’s giving us nothing.”

“It’s humming,” Allie said.

Halen looked towards her. “I don’t hear anything.”

“I do.”

Sara was still holding Allie’s arm.

Halen noticed. “Is that necessary?”

“Yes,” Sara replied.

“No,” Allie said at the same time.

The Lieutenant considered them, then returned her attention to the console. “Archive control is dealing with the preservation field failure in chamber four. It spreads to two adjacent cabinets and one of the artefacts has decided it is six hundred years younger than it was this morning.”

“Decided?” Rio asked.

“The dating scans keep changing. At the current rate, it will become newly manufactured by dinner.”

Gyles looked towards the door. “Is the Archive experiencing wider systems disruption?”

“Nothing connected to this room. The station has been overloaded for two days, and half The Archive staff are supporting arrivals elsewhere.”

“Then this may be an isolated incident,” Brendan said.

The hum shifted. It rose by a single note.

Everyone in the room heard it.

Halen turned slowly toward the lattice. “I withdraw my previous statement.”

A notification sounded from the central terminal.

The temporary inventory record has updated itself.

Beneath the words UNIDENTIFIED LATTICE STRUCTURE, a new field appeared.

CULTURAL FUNCTION: UNKNOWN.

Allie moved closer to the console. “It wants a description.”

Sara tightened her grip.

“I said I’m not going to cross the line.”

“You moved.”

Gyles read the new field twice. “Can the archive software create classification prompts automatically?”

“Yes,” Helen said. “But not after an object has been isolated. Manual review should be required.”

Rio touched the screen. “The field is locked. We can’t delete it.”

“Can you disconnect the terminal from the Archive database?” Gyles asked.

“I can try.”

Rio moved to the adjacent controls. She entered a series of commands, frowned and entered them again.

The terminal produced an unpleasant rejection tone.

“That was rude,” she said.

“Report,” Gyles replied.

“The local system is treating the intake record as active containment data. It won’t release the connection while it’s still reviewing.”

“Can you close the record?”

“I won’t close.”

“Why?”

“Because it doesn’t have a classification.”

The hum continued beneath them, calm and patient.

Halen rubbed both hands across her face. “The system needs a cultural description before it will complete the record.”

Sara looked at her. “You want us to tell the mysterious object what it is?”

Gyles looked at Allie, “Can you create a natural description based on what we’ve observed?”

Allie studied the lattice for a moment. “yes, give me a moment.”

Allie entered the generic wording carefully. The Archive’s system accepted it mostly, though, a warning appeared on the screen requesting a cultural function.

The hum rose again.

Brendan lifted his tricorder. “Barrier strength is decreasing.”

“The object?” Gyles asked.

“No identifiable source.”

Allie was still looking at the warning on the screen. “It may be an archival object.”

Halen glanced at her. “Based on what?”

“It arrived at an archive.”

“That is circular reasoning.”

Allie took an intake of breath and shook her head. “It’s probably the best we can do.”

Sara looked around the lattice, studying the shape. “Could we just classify it as a decorative object? It’s kind of pretty.”

The empty centre seemed to darken.

“No,” Allie said. “I don’t think it likes that.”

Sara looked back and forth between Allie and the object. “You don’t think the impossible hole would like being called decorative?”

Allie shook her head every so slightly without taking her eyes of the centre of the object now seemingly different from a few moments ago.

Gyles stepped forwards toward the terminal. “Enter the function as a cultural indexing device. It may take that.”

Allie did so.

For a second, nothing happened. Then the hum stopped. Though, the silence it left behind felt somehow louder than the hum. The intake record on the screen changed from amber to blue.

Rio watched the display. “It believed us.”

“No,” Allie said quietly. “It understood us.”

Before anyone could respond, another terminal chimed. A green classified object in the second row had activated.

The funerary lantern had not seemed particularly dangerous when they first examined it. It was a narrow metal frame surrounding six panels of translucent stone, each etched with a different name. The expedition record described it as an object placed beside the deceased during public mourning rituals. It possessed no power source and had produced no unusual readings.

Now a pale light burned behind the stone panels.

Sara drew her phaser instinctively. Brendan did the same and moved toward the container.

The lanterns’ glow strengthened. A voice emerged from it, thin and uncertain.

“Tell Marel I left the upper gate open.”

Rio looked at the others. “Did anyone else hear that?”

The lantern spoke again, this time in a different voice.

“I should have stayed until morning.”

A third voice followed.

“The blue cup is behind the stove.”

Halen snatched the nearest PADD from the console. “The funerary object’s record.”

Allie joined her at the display. The cultural notes listed the lantern as a symbolic guide for the final words of the dead, though the expedition team had believed the phrase metaphorical.

The lantern flickered.

“Do not let them give my brother the orchard.”

Sara looked toward Gyles. “Are those recordings?”

“No audio storage was detected,” Allie said.

The lantern spoke again. “I never liked the curtains.”

Rio frowned. “That one seemed less important.”

“Not to whoever said it,” Allie replied.

The next voice was louder and felt somehow closer. “Petty Officer Xan’dar Brendan,” it said.

Brendan went completely still.

Everyone looked at him.

The lantern continued in a dry male voice. “The port armoury inventory is missing two compression rifle power cells.”

Brendan’s antennae drew upright.

Sora shot him a look. “Do you know that voice?”

“Yes.”

“Are they dead?”

“Yes”

The lantern got brighter. “Commander Ru’ket Gyles,” said a woman’s voice. “You always look older when you use those spectacles.

Gyles’s hand rose unconsciously towards the frames resting on the end of his nose.

Allie stared at the PADD in Halen’s hand.

“The names,” she said. “It’s reading the names from the nearby personnel files.”

Halen checked the screen. The active terminal displayed the temporary access roster for everyone assigned to this part of the Archive.

The lantern spoke again. “Ensign Rio Rydar,” a voice whispered. “You should have turned sooner.”

Rio’s expression changed.

Sara stepped towards her but Rio shook her head. “I don’t know that voice.”

“That may not matter,” Allie said. “The lantern is creating what its culture believed final words should be. It may be selecting them from a memory, an association or expectation.”

“That is not better,” Rio said.

“Turn it off,” Sara ordered.

“There is no switch,” Brendan replied.

“Then put it back in the container.”

He reached for the remote handling controls. Before he could activate them, the lantern spoke again.

“Ensign Sara Winters.”

Sara stopped.

Allie looked towards her as her voice came from the lantern. “I was going to touch it before you stopped me.”

Sara slowly turned towards Allie.

Allie’s expression became very careful.

“You were going to touch it?”

“No.”

The lantern spoke again, “I was definitely going to touch it.”

Sara folded her arms.

Allie looked offended. “It is misinterpreting me.”

“You were going to touch the dangerous object.”

“I was considering the value to direct contact.”

“So, you were going to touch it!”

Allie shifted in place, “Not without a glove.”

Sara closed her eyes.

Halen pressed both hands against her mouth to hide the smile.

The lanterns’ light suddenly faded and the room fell quiet.

Sara looked toward it as it did so and then back to Allie, We’re going to talk about this later.

Allie smiled, as though she’s heard this multiple times before from her old Academy buddy, and nodded.

Gyles moved back to the terminal and opened the activity log, “when did it activate?”

Halen checked the timestamp. “thirty-two seconds after the cultural record was updated.”

“Updated with what?” Allied asked.

Halen ready from the display. “Funerary lantern used to represent the enduring final words of the deceased.”

The black lattice hummed once.

Everyone turned their heads toward it.

Gyles’s expression tightened. “Suspend all further cultural entries.”

Rio moved to the terminal. “Already done.”

A sharp crack sounded from the far side of the intake room. The seed pod split open.

It had been classified as a ceremonial agricultural object from an extinct colony world. The shell was the size of a Human fist. And had been sealed inside a transparent environmental unit. According to the expedition notes, the pod had been carried during planting festivals to symbolise renewal after drought.

A thin green shoot pushed through the crack.

Then another.

Allie took one step forward.

Sara caught her by the sleeve.

“I wasn’t going to touch it.” Allie said.

“You no longer receive the benefit of the doubt.”

The shoots thickened with startling seed. Roots burst from the lower half of the pod and spread across the environmental unit’s base. Vines struck the transparent walls, recoiled and searched for another route.

Brendan reached the isolation controls. “Containment breach imminent.”

The vines found the air intake. They emerged through the vent in a twisting green mass.

“Seal the room,” Gyles ordered.

The environmental unit’s outer barrier activated, but the vines were already through. They swept across the isolation chamber, winding around the examination platform, sensor posts and ceiling braces.

Rio stared through the transparent wall. “That’s quite a lot of renewal.”

Within ten seconds, flowers opened along the vines. Within fifteen, they had covered the rear wall. Within twenty, the scanning equipment disappeared entirely beneath leaves.

Halen ran a tricorder over the growth. “No dangerous spores. No toxins. It’s consuming carbon dioxide, trace minerals and….”

The chamber lights dimmed.

“Electrical power,” Rio finished.

The vines pushed against the forcefield, their leaves flattening against it.

Brendan checked the containment status. “The barrier will hold.”

One thick vine wrapped itself around the field projector.

The field flickered.

“Correction,” Brendan said. “The barrier….. should hold.”

Sara drew her phaser. “Stun setting?”

“Do not fire into the environmental unit,” Halen said. “We may spread viable material.”

Sara didn’t take her eyes off the barrier. “It is already trying to spread itself.”

“The object is culturally significant.”

“It is eating the room.”

Gyles watched the growth. The vines were not moving randomly. They twisted around every structural support and power conduit. Rebuilding the chamber into something green and dense.

“What does the cultural record say?” he asked.

Allie brought it up. “The pod represented abundance after famine. The local phrase translates as ‘life enough to cover every empty space.’”

Gyles removed his glasses and looked toward the vine, “Someone entered that wording?”

Halen looked at the activity log. “The entry completed automatically when the lattice was classified. The Archive entered it itself.”

The vines struck the barrier again.

Rio looked toward the black object. “So we told that thing it was an archive device and now it’s helping the archive?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Allie said. “It has a poor misunderstanding of boundaries, it seems to be doing what it was meant to do.”

Gyles tapped his combadge. “Gyles to Archive Control. Emergency response required to Intake Chamber Two.”

No response came.

Brendan was already accessing the environmental controls. “Reducing temperature. Lowering oxygen concentration within the isolation room.”

The vines slowed a little, the flowers closed. After a moment the growth settled into stillness, covering almost every visible surface behind the barrier.

“Did that work?” Brendan asked.

Allie looked toward the barrier, “I’m not sure, it could have been you, or it could have simply completed its task of bringing life to every surface.”

Sara looked at the room and nodded toward Brendan. “Thirty seconds.”

He looked at her and winked. “Twenty seven.”

Before anything else could be said the central terminal produced another alert.

Rio turned toward it. “Something else has activated.”

A stone sculpture rested on the next worktable. It was a little more than a collection of angular shapes fixed around a polished central point. The notes identified it as a navigational marker of some kind. Possibly used to travel between several moons within a system.

The sculpture rotated.

The deck moved.

Sara’s stomach lurched as gravity changed direction. Down became the far wall. Everyone instantly fell and slid toward the new floor.

Gyles struck the side of a console and caught its edge with both hands. Rio slipped across the deck, collided with the antigravity platform and carried it with her towards the wall. Sara grabbed Allie around the waist before they both struck a storage cabinet. Brendan hit the bulkhead feet first and someone managed to keep hold of his tricorder.

The loose PADDs were less fortunate.

They scattered through the air and crashed against the new floor.

The antigravity platform they’d used earlier came to a rest beneath RIO.

She pushed herself up on one elbow. “I dislike this assignment.”

The platform chimed and attempted to correct its orientation. Its lift field activated sideways.

Rio and the platform began moving towards the ceiling.

“No,” she told it.

It accelerated.

Rio grabbed the control unit and entered a command. The platform quickly changed direction but so sharply that it now struck the wall again.

Sara, still holding onto Allie looked over. “Are you arguing with the sled?”

“It started it,” called Rio.

Brendan braced his boot against a lighting fixture and attempted to reach the gravity control panel. He tapped the controls and gravity shifted again.

Down became the ceiling this time. Brendan dropped upwards and caught the exposed support rail with one had. He reached for the controls again as Rio drifted past him with the anti-gravity platform.

“Are you trying to help?” She asked.

He gave her a look, “The controls aren’t responding correctly.”

Gyles pulled himself along the side of the console towards the central terminal. “Can anyone reach the artefacts containment controls?”

“I think I can,” Sara said, releasing Allie slowly. “Hold onto something.”

Allie grabbed the edge of a workstation and steadied herself.

Sara pushed away from the bulkhead, crossed the room and grabbed the sculpture’s remote-control panel. Before she could enter a command, gravity changed direction again.

This time, down pointed diagonally towards one of the corners. Everyone slid.

The black lattice remained unaffected, floating in its isolation alcove with its empty centre perfectly aligned towards the sculpture.

Allie saw it. “The lattice is orienting the objects towards their cultural meaning,” she said.

Sara collided with a wall brace. “This would be a better time for more practical advice.”

“The sculpture is not changing gravity randomly. It is pointing down towards its home system.”

Rio wrestled with the sled controls. “We are inside a starbase. How does it know where its home system is?”

“It may not,” Allie replied. “It may be pointing towards where the culture believed home should be.”

“That’s not practical either!” Rio said again, still grappling with the controls.

Gyles reached the terminal and checked the sculpture’s record. “The cultural entry describes it as a device. Which ensures travellers always remained orientated toward home. It’s just interpreting the data incorrectly.”

Rio nodded, “Delete the description.”

Allied laughed, “we can’t delete anything.”

“We can change it!” Gyle said.

Allie nodded and grabbed the nearest PADD, changing it to a commemorative representation rather than an actual order. Sara caught the back of her uniform and held her in place while she entered the revised wording.

The terminal accepted the change.

The stone sculpture stopped rotating.

Gravity returned to the deck.

Everyone fell, but the correct way this time.

Gyles landed on one knee. Brendan dropped beside the wall and rolled to absorb the impact. Sara and Allie came down together while Rio landed squarely on the anti-gravity platform.

The platform chimed.

Rio stared at it. “Do not.”

It lowered gently to the deck as though it did not want to suffer her wrath.

Brendan stood and adjusted his uniform. “The object required amber containment.”

Rio remained seated on the sled. “Thank you, Petty Officer.”

“I was not speaking to you”

“I know.” She said with a smirk.

Halen retrieved a PADD from beneath a workstation. “We need to isolate the lattice from The Archive’s network.”

“We need to remove it from the station,” Sara said.

Allie looked toward the containment alcove. “Not yet.”

Sara turned to her. “We have a talking funeral lamp, and aggressive garden and a sculpture that just threw us into a wall.”

“They were not aggressive.” Allie said.

“The vines attacked the barrier.”

“They were filling the space.”

“With themselves.”

“I think that was their purpose.”

Sara stared at her.

Allie’s expression softened. “I agree that we need to contain it. I just don’t think the lattice is deliberately attacking us.”

“That won’t matter when the next thing tries to kill us.”

Gyles rose to his feet and straightened his uniform. A tear had appeared in one of the cuffs. He noticed, frowned and looked towards the central terminal. “All cultural records remain suspended?”

Rio checked. “Yes.”

A porcelain mask began to lift itself from the fifth container.

No one had touched it.

The mask was pale and narrow with a smooth forehead and a mouth marked by a single painted line. It had been recovered from the audience chamber of a long-abandoned diplomatic complex. The original notes suggested it was worn by negotiators to symbolise honesty.

The mask slowly turned, as if to look at them.

Brendan looked terrified; Sara raised her phaser.

Then, a voice came from it. “This is exactly why I wanted to stay on Risa.”

Sara froze. The voice was hers.

The group looked towards her.

The mask spoke again, “That does not mean I have to enjoy being buried in alien plants before lunch.”

Rio smiles.

Sara pointed her phaser at the mask, “Not a word.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Rio replied.

The mask turned towards Brendan.

“This assignment lacks an adequate security plan,” it announced in his voice.

Brendan’s antennae flattened. “That is an inaccurate representation.”

The mask continued. “The commander is opening unidentified containers before formally assuming command of the station.”

Gyles looked at him.

Brendan straightened. “I did not actually say anything.”

“Hmm, I am aware.” Gyles replied.

The mask then turned again, this time stopping to face Rio.

“I could fly the Runabout through The Archive’s access corridor.”

Rio frowned. “I wasn’t going to do that.”

The mask then turned toward Allie. But Sara stepped between them. “No,” she said.

The porcelain face tilted.

Then spoke in Allie’s voice anyway, “I was going to touch the lattice before Sara stopped me.”

Sara slowly looked over her shoulder.

Allie winced, “That was earlier”

“You denied it earlier.”

The mask then added, “I still want to touch it.”

Sara closed her eyes and drew in a breath.

Rio looked away, her shoulders shaking from the stifled laughter.

Halen again put her hand over her mouth to hide another smile.

The mask then turned again, this time settling on Gyles. For the first time, he looked concerned. It spoke in his precise and restrained voice. “This assignment is not progressing to schedule.”

Then a pause before it continued, “it has become an appalling exhibition of poor documentation, inadequate staffing and objects that behave however they please. I have not yet taken command and I’d already like to place half of its admin systems out the airlock.”

The room became very quiet.

Rio stared at him.

Sara forgot that she was angry with Allie.

Brendan’s antennae rose.

Halen looked at the floor.

Gyles then did what he always did in these situations, he slowly removed his glasses and cleaned them slowly.

“The object appears to exaggerate,” he said simply.

The mask, in his voice, replied. “It does not.”

Rio made a strangled sound.

Gyles replaced his spectacles. “Petty Officer, can you place it back in containment please.”

Without a word, Brendan moved towards the object and got to work. As it was being placed away, it continued in Gyles’s voice but muffled so no one could understand.

Gyles watched as it was sealed back in its container.

The room was silent except for the steady hum of the black lattice.

Sara lowered her phaser. Rio looked towards the controls on her sled. Allie’s gaze remained on Gyles, while Halen busied herself gathering scattered PADDs.

Gyles cleared his throat. “The mask is also classified amber.”

“Understood sir,” Brendan said,

It was kind of him not to say anything else.

Allie moved to the central terminal and began reviewing the activity logs. She read every entry twice then brought the events into a single timeline.

“The lantern activated after its record identified it with final words,” Allie said. “The seed pod activated after the database described it as life covering empty places. The navigational sculpture changed gravity after its cultural function was recorded as always pointing travellers’ home.”

“And the mask began speaking thoughts after being classified,” Halen said.

Rio leaned against the sled. “So the solution is to stop writing things down.”

“On a station dedicated to preserving records,” Gyles said.

“Yes.”

“That may be difficult.”

Brendan looked towards the lattice. “You believe it is interpreting The Archive’s database?”

“Not interpreting it like a computer,” Allie replied. “Responding to it. The objects are becoming what their cultures believed them to be.”

“They were already those object though….. right?” Sara asked.

“Physically, yes. But they’re not designed to act in this…. Way.”

“So,” Halen replied. “The lattice is engaging these artefacts, and where a metaphor exists it is becoming literal.”

Allie nodded, “Or allowing the objects themselves to express through that meaning.”

Rio looked at the mass of vines behind the containment field. “Maybe they should express themselves less.”

Gyles studied the temporal record they had created for the lattice.

CULTURAL INDEXING DEVICE

“We told the system that it was an archival instrument,” he said.

Allie followed his gaze. “And it began relating the records to the objects. I think the lattice was designed to connect objects through a shared significance. It may not distinguish between a cultural description and an operations instruction.”

Brendan checked the status of the barrier. “Can we alter the classification?”

“We could describe it as inert,” Rio said.

Allie shook her head. “That would be dishonest. I think it would know.”

Rio glanced at Sara, “Is she defending it?”

Sara raised her eyebrows. “She does that” she replied.

I’m trying to understand.

Sara stepped closer to Allie. “Understand it from behind the containment though.”

Allie smiled. “Agreed.”

Gyles opened a direct connection to the isolation alcove’s local controls. “We removed the lattice from The Archive’s network, transfer it into a shielded storage container and suspend all semantic indexing until specialist personnel arrive.”

“Semantic indexing?” Rio asked.

“The database entries,” Halen said.

I preferred it when the problem was the grav sled,”

The sled chimed.

“You stay out of this,” Rio pointed.

Brendan began preparing a portable containment cylinder. Halen rerouted the Archive connection while Rio adjusted the sled for the lattice’s fluctuating field. Sara stood beside Allie, watching both her and the object with equal suspicion.

For the first time since the incidents began, the room seemed to settle.

Then five objects started humming.

The sound came from different parts of the chamber but matched the same repeating pattern.

The black lattice.

The funerary lantern.

The seed pod.

The navigational structure.

The diplomatic mask.

Five noted, rising and falling together,

Allie looked towards the active display. “Those are the five records connected to the cultural function field.”

The central terminal flashed.

Every container in the room locked.

Brendan turned towards the security controls. “Automatic containment protocol.”

The doors sealed instantly. Heavy bulkheads dropped over both exits. The transparent partitions around the intake chamber darkened as extra forcefields activated.

A calm computer voice filled the room.

“Archive semantic contamination detected. Intake Wing Two has been isolated.”

Rio looked toward Halen. “Does the station regularly use the phrase semantic contamination?”

Halen shook her head.

The lights above changed to amber and a line of dots appeared on each terminal screen. Not Starfleet, something different.

They were angular, tightly arranged and unlike any script Allie recognised. The same characters appeared on the tricorders, the anti grav sled unit and the silver panel of the lattices container.

The five artefacts continued their shared harmonic.

Sara looked at the sealed doors. “Can we override the lockdown?”

Brendan tried the control panel. “Command access has been suspended.”

Gyles stepped beside him and entered his authorisation.

The system rejected it.

“Your command codes may not be active yet,” Halen said.

Allie moved toward the nearest screen. “The phrase is repeating.”

“Can the translator identify it?” Sara asked.

“Not yet.”

The symbols shifted and appeared again.

Gyles looked at them. He recognised something. Not a memory of his own, something older from a previous host. He remembered an old chamber beneath a desert. Stone records lifted from a collapsed vault.

The memory came in fragments.

Keeper…. Return… Things drawn together

“Commander?” Allie said.

He raised one hand.

The older memory settled into place, incomplete but clear enough.

“The first section means keeper,” he said. “Or custodian. Someone entrusted with preserving what remains.”

Halen looked at him. “You recognise this language?”

“One of my symbiont’s previous hosts encountered a similar related script. But not this exact form.”

The symbols repeated.

Gyles read them slowly. “The keeper has returned.”

The five artefacts increased their harmonic.

The floor vibrated beneath them.

A second line appeared on every display.

Gyles felt the translation arrive from somewhere he had not visited in decades and had never personally been.

He looked towards the black lattice.

“Begin the gathering,” he said.

The lights went out………