They spoke.
The Silent Ones. Not with mouths, but with thought.
Words filled our heads in unison:
"You were not the first. You will not be the last. Each carries a piece. But none carry the whole."
We saw visions of other crews. Other Vigilants. Some failing. Some merging. Some becoming… them.
They were not malevolent. They were us. Left behind in the wake of contact. Shadows molded by remembrance.
They showed me myself—torn across dimensions, iterations lost to failed jumps, timelines cracked by decisions I hadn't yet made.
The artifact was a junction. A repository. A conscience of humanity spread across possibility.
But the price of entering was permanence.
"Leave," they said. "Or stay and become part of the whole."
Keene stepped forward and vanished.
He chose the whole.