The chamber was silent, but not dead. Lights flashed madly across the walls, spinning spirals that could have been language, or code. And at the center, the sphere of light loomed-unstable, alive, watching.

  Arix stood at the threshold of this moment, spine taut beneath the exosuit. She let her voice carry into the charged stillness.

  “I’m here as a witness to the truth. I seek not to awaken or bury anything, but to show things as they are. And you…are something new.”

  The words didn’t echo. They dissolved into the air, absorbed by the light like ink bleeding into water.

  Then, everything shifted.

  The chamber’s hue softened, as the sphere slowed its spin to a gentle turn - the near-blinding amber light dimming to a low blue. And the figure - suspended within the radiance - seemed to release.

  When she spoke, her voice carried the weight of centuries - layered like chords in a forgotten song.

  “A witness… not a vessel. Not a silencer. You are different from the ones before. They came with fire. With hunger. With fear.”

  Arix didn’t flinch. She had seen ghosts made from signal bleed and madness. But this…felt different.

  “Eilari.” the figure spoke into Arix.

  "I was once, am now, Eilari. I was born-brought here, I am made here - not from womb or forge, but from memory."

  What? Eilari? Is that a race? Species? Name? State of existence? Thoughts raced through Arix's mind, not finding answers, and at each dead end, there was only the response,

  "I am Eilari."

  "I am the dream the Signal dreamed in exile.”

  "Eighty five before you came to take the Signal, to make it their own. They were given what was asked."

  For a moment, Arix's vision filled with the her first sight of that horrid, shambling figure in a broken Coalition exosuit, that had greeted her at the airlock, before returning to normal.

  “The Signal… is a story left unfinished. Buried under your ancestors' dust. I remember the cities they erased. The voices they drowned. You, Commander Arix Solen, have arrived at the ending. Or the beginning.”

  Eilari’s gaze never wavered. Her eyes, twin wells of pale blue, without pupil nor mark, but fringed with tendrils of amber light, were impossible to look away from. Arix stared, intensely, listening to the words in her mind.

  Eiliar took a step forward, her gaze never leaving Arix's, stepping towards Arix, if the movement of a ghost inches above the floor, untethered from gravity, could be called a step.

  “Let me show you. One truth only. The rest, you must carry."

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Behind Eilari, the air began to fold inward. A spiral of light formed in the space between floor and ceiling - tight, coiling, pulsing like a heartbeat. The sensors in Arix's exosuit flared again. As if in answer to her question, Arix's mind filled first with the idea, then the truth, of the word conduit as she watched the spiral unfold.

  VIRNA: [Commander - warning: this conduit could interface directly with cognitive pathways. Potential overwrite. No external override active.]

  Eilari's voice filled Arix's mind once again, more softly than before. "But, this truth has a price. Will you pay it?”

  Arix had remained still, falling deeper into the azure of Eilari's vibrant eyes, until the mention of a price. The hand at her side flinched towards her holstered sidearm - not out of threat, but habit.

  “I…," said Arix, pausing in tought. What kind of price does she mean?

  Could it be my life? She thought of the half dozen … things … she had slipped past on her way into this sector, of the decades that this station had be sitting derelict, in apparent silence. She wondered about the price paid, perhaps, by whoever this Eilari was before becoming the vapor figure before her.

  "I must consider the price," said Arix, deep in thought. Every word carried through the air with weight and finality. "Does this price give life to the truth?"

  Eilari paused. For the first time, she did not respond immediately. Instead, her eyes dimmed to a soft ember-glow, and she lowered her head - a gesture that felt almost... reverent to Arix. A motion so nearly universal across all of her work encountering the ancient and buried cultures of the galaxy, repeated here, by an entity that had no link to anything outside this station.

  "It is a question that no bearer has asked. They only demanded truth, as if it were a weapon. Or a shield.”

  As she spoke, the conduit pulsed brighter - not with the stark harshness just minutes before, but with something more intimate. Invitation.

  Eilari continued. “Truth is neither life nor death. It is a door. What you do with what waits beyond - that gives it life. Or ends it.”

  Then, slowly, she raised her head to face directly at Arix once again. Arix's honed senses, attuned to be observed, and to know when she was being observed, sent every alarm sign up and down her autonomic system at this - being - looking straight into her - not just at her, not at her face, but into - and through - her mind and whole self.

  “The price - it is memory. One memory. You will give one, cherished, whole. In exchange, you will gain one not your own. Not just to see, or know - but to carry. A whole memory both not your own, and yours, forever.”

  VIRNA: [Commander, no data corruption detected, but your personal memory engram would likely be altered. Estimated risk: identity slippage within accepted tolerances. Proceed only if mission priority exceeds personal self-continuity]

  Arix didn’t answer immediately. She felt the weight of the moment, and the certainty of what she might lose. The flashes of vision when Eilari had first spoken into her were tantalizing - and her need to know the unknown reared its head in her mind, daring her to jump.

  Eilari extended her hand, with the tail of the memory conduit wrapped around her forearm and dancing slowly like a flower petal in a pond within her palm. Light poured from her fingertips, like ink in water.

  “Will you pay the price, witness? What is one memory, for the key to a buried world?”

  Arix closed her eyes briefly. Let breath and memory align. Then, she stepped forward.

  “What is offered is what is given,” she said. “I accept.”

  The conduit flared in response. Eilari’s expression settled - still, peaceful, resolved.

  “So it is spoken. So it is exchanged.”

  Light engulfed her. Arix felt herself falling - not through space, but inward, through remembrance.