Tezzeret boards the Seriema and names the recovered object. The Endstone does not create wishes from nothing; it selects a past that supports the purpose expressed through its chooser. Every correction exacts a cost elsewhere. Tezzeret refuses to graft it into his body because domination by older powers has defined too much of his life, and control over himself is the one possession he will not risk.
Mm'menon arrives with the wider theory. Sothera is an eddy of ancient warfare, littered with effects so large that later civilisations classify them as landscape. The Illvoi researcher inferred the stone from systemwide anomalies after the Uthros Combine dismissed the pattern. Tezzeret listened because the same evidence might reveal how an exile from the Multiverse can cross the Chaos Wall. Mm'menon's assigned role is acceleration, then a return to the safehouse—not the final delivery. Mm'menon taught Tezzeret languages in exchange for help investigating anomalies.
The Endstone points toward Infinite Guideline and the Weft beyond it. Both human faiths move to blockade the station. Tezzeret proposes using revision to force passage; Sami proposes exploiting the one value their enemies and Pinnacle still share: ships in mortal danger are supposed to receive help. The plan requires speed from Mm'menon, competing appeals from Haliya and Alpharael, and a warp ferry nobody can lawfully take. Mm'menon's role is not to deliver the Endstone to its maker. They infer the ancient-causality pattern, explain it to Tezzeret and accelerate the Seriema toward the station, with instructions to withdraw afterward. Tezzeret refuses to put the artifact into his own body because that could cost precisely the self-direction he seeks.