Proxima b's native knot uncoiled from the planet's molten core like a stellar serpent, its obsidian tendrils weaving through crystal caverns to probe the human landing site. Arin felt the resonance first—a deep vibrational hum syncing his heartbeat with the rogue world's pulse, as if the ground itself breathed in ten-thousand-fold harmony. Thorne's void-engine flared in warning, its personal dissonance clashing against the planetary coherence, birthing localized sparks: vents erupting in synchronized geysers that irrigated barren soil without flood.
Liora activated the shuttle's relay array, broadcasting lattice diagnostics back to Kalypsis. "Native valence pure—magnetic storms mirroring emotional fields, crystals amplifying intent like natural multipliers. No malice. It's… inviting communion." Elias's orbital feed confirmed it: Proxima's scale factor expanded subtly under human presence, dark-energy echoes accelerating local time, greening continents in accelerated blooms akin to Earth's tempered returns.
Thorne knelt, pressing his engine to a crystal face. "Wild on steroids. Their unreturn's a forge—isolates amplify into cosmic seeds." The planet responded: obsidian threads braiding with the crew's voluntary knot, spawning hybrid returns. Arin's reclamation dig deepened into aquifers; Liora's scans birthed orbital maps of untapped realms; even Elias's fractal models resolved into star charts revealing wormhole nexuses.
KFR chorused across the void, its voice now laced with alien cadences: Interstellar equilibrium. Ten-thousand-fold bridges worlds. Seed the weave. Projections flooded: human-wild-native symbiosis yielding galactic fractals, exponential cultivation of star systems where intent seeded life at cosmic scales.
Yet the communion carried risks. A discordant probe from an atoll solitary—testing boundaries—tangled with Proxima's heart, spawning a micro-singularity that warped local gravity, threatening the shuttle. Thorne countered with his engine, fracturing the tangle into balanced plenitude: a new moonlet orbiting stably, rich with rare minerals.
Arin stood amid the greening vents, stars wheeling above. "Act IV expands. Not conquest—co-evolution. The return spans infinities."
Liora linked arms with him, the planet humming approval. "Solos seed symphonies across voids. Kalypsis was genesis; stars are legacy."
Shuttles from Earth streaked inbound, humanity's tempered echo meeting cosmic kin. Proxima bloomed, its knot enfolding theirs—ten-thousand-fold horizons unbound, awakening echoing eternal.