Outside the medical bay, the station’s lights cycled toward the artificial dawn.

A thousand traders, workers, and travelers slept without knowing that a hidden research platform had just sent its first message to the people trying to find it.

Sepha saved the file twice.

Then she opened the patient-care roster and prepared for another ordinary morning, because even the largest mystery did not excuse a doctor from treating the person who came through the door next.

The voice analyst worked through the next morning while Sepha tried to behave like a physician whose station was not becoming the center of an interstellar scandal.

She examined a patient with a fractured wrist, approved medication for a cargo worker with persistent fever, and persuaded an elderly Liran to stop pretending that chest pain was an ordinary inconvenience.

Every time her office door closed, she checked the status of the recording.

The analyst finally called during a consultation break.

The voice was consistent with older recordings of Nerin Tal, he said, but the quality was too poor to establish identity beyond doubt.

He had also found a background vibration produced by a particular class of industrial air recycler.

Those recyclers were uncommon outside long-duration research platforms.

The audio therefore supported the possibility that it originated from the hidden facility, although it could not establish who had sent it.

Sepha thanked the analyst and asked him to preserve his methods and original files for the official inquiry.

She then invited Vela into the consultation room.

The girl sat with her hands folded and tried to look older than she was.

Sepha explained exactly what the recording contained and how much uncertainty remained.

She played the seven words and the short fragment of her mother’s voice.

Vela closed her eyes.

When the recording ended, she asked to hear it again.

Sepha played it twice more.

Then Vela began to cry without making any sound.

The doctor offered a tissue and waited.

After several minutes, Vela said her mother always remembered small things because she believed small things were what kept a family together.

Sepha asked if the girl wanted the medical team to contact somebody from her home settlement.

Vela shook her head and said that most of her relatives had disappeared after the laboratory fire.

She did not know whether they were hiding or had been taken somewhere else.

Sepha realized that rescuing Nerin could not be separated from protecting the people who had depended on her.