They reconvened the next morning, after a night Susan suspected none of them had slept through.
Eight chairs instead of six. Priya near the whiteboard, tablet open. Rob at the head of the table—not claiming authority, but accepting the position his presence seemed to demand. Coffee steamed in cups. Fog pressed against the windows.
"I need to hear from each of you," Priya said without preamble. "Not the summary. What do you actually think we should do?"
The room went quiet. Susan felt the weight of being looked at first.
"I think about ecosystems," she said. "When you introduce a new species—even a beneficial one—you change everything. Cascades you can't predict. The Cethren have been shaping Earth's biology for billions of years through the chronicle's influence. If they become embodied, that influence becomes direct. Agency. Choices. The ability to act in ways that affect everything around them."
"So you're against," Priya said.
"I'm concerned. There's a diff—"
"The physics is real," David cut in. "That's what I keep coming back to. We derived it. We tested it. Even if we choose not to build the bioreactor, the understanding is out in the world now. Physics doesn't un-discover itself."
"So we should act preemptively?" Susan turned to him. "Better us than some future group who doesn't have our context?"
"I'm saying the choice isn't between action and inaction. It's between different people making the decision."
"That's convenient…
