Twelve

Jessyn is blindfolded and led by an armed man through unfamiliar terrain to a hidden cave. There she discovers a group of human refugees—children and two adults—along with a damaged black mechanical being that serves as their guard. She realizes these humans are survivors of the Carryx invasion and potential enemies to her Carryx masters, yet she is drawn to them as her own kind.

Jessyn is taken captive by a man with a knife who blindfolds her with his jacket and guides her deeper into unknown territory. After struggling with panic when entering a dark cave, she emerges into a limestone chamber serving as a refugee camp. The space contains a dozen children around ten or eleven years old, two adult caretakers (a man and a woman), survival equipment, and a severely damaged black mechanical being that serves as a sentry. The children and adults speak a language Jessyn cannot understand. A girl brings Jessyn food, and through careful observation, Jessyn deduces that these humans are survivors hiding from the Carryx invasion that destroyed her research team's planet. She grapples with conflicting emotions: fear that they will kill her as a Carryx collaborator, but also profound relief at encountering human faces and understandable behavior after surviving among alien species. As the group settles for the evening, Jessyn discovers her research notebook still in her pocket, undetected by her captors. The notebook's map function shows her location and recent entries from other researchers, including one from Garral Pär. Jessyn makes a critical decision: rather than alerting her Carryx masters to her location, she sends Garral Pär a coded message requesting to compare notes, including her coordinates, effectively severing her connection to the Carryx and committing herself to the human refugees.