"Number One", Captain Pike's first officer, arrives from the still inoperative Enterprise and hints at inconsistencies in the files about Spock. Pike continues the pursuit of Spock's shuttle, which is about to leave the sensor range. Suddenly the warp field breaks down, and the Discovery faces a huge sphere composed of organic and anorganic matter. The ship is caught in a stasis field and the universal translator gets infected with a computer virus, turning the communication on the bridge into a Babylonian chaos. The polyglot Saru temporarily activates a backup system but the virus begins to affect other systems as well. In engineering, Reno is about to support Stamets and Tilly, when an electromagnetic discharge sets the organism known as "May" free. "May" attaches itself to Tilly's body yet again. In the presence of the sphere Saru sees flashes of UV light, a sign that he has entered the vahar'ai, the final stage of his life. Saru and Burnham develop "digital antibodies" to slow down the virus in the Discovery's systems, but the ship is running out of time since Spock's shuttle is at the edge of the sensor range. Pike wants to break free using photon torpedoes, but Saru feels that the sphere is dying and actually wants to establish "last contact". So Pike agrees to stand down and wait for a transmission from the sphere. The sphere sends the data and finally explodes, but not before reversing the polarity of the stasis field to allow the Discovery to escape. In engineering, Stamets and Reno work on a way to let "May" speak through Tilly, using a makeshift cortical implant. "May" says that she is a member of the jahSepp, a species native to the mycelial network and that their realm is threatened by an alien intruder. She identifies Stamets, who repeatedly navigated the ship through the network, as the intruder. After Reno has freed Tilly of "May", the entity transforms herself into some sort of cocoon that completely envelops Tilly. Saru goes to his quarters to die, accompanied only by Burnham. He asks her to cut off his threat ganglia to end the suffering. When she finally agrees, the ganglia fall of by themselves. Saru lives, now without the fear that was apparently induced by these organs. He calls the whole idea of the "Great Balance" on his home planet Kaminar a lie. In the meantime, the Discovery is on a pursuit course for Spock's shuttle again, thanks to sensor data obtained from the sphere.

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